Viewpoint: The biggest risk in the crypto world is that you lack the courage to take risks; if you don't place bets, just wait to be eliminated.

The author uses mathematics and interesting examples to illustrate a concept: gambling is a force for good. It is to face the unknown with courage, to create order from chaos, to transform randomness into ritual. This article is derived from an article written by GRITCULT and compiled, compiled and contributed by Foresight News. (Synopsis: The truth behind the corporate buying of bitcoin: the cash-out and stock trading game of internal executives? How should investors rationally analyze) (Background supplement: Bitcoin cycle theory is dead? CEO of CryptoQuant: The BTC sold by the old whale flows to long-term institutional investors) I would like to elaborate here: gambling is not a human defect, but our most striking feature, the engine that drives our evolution, economy and civilization. From the structure of the brain to the birth of the market, from ancient exploration to modern technology, the logic of risk and reward has had a profound impact on civilization and humanity far beyond what we dare to admit. Bet is truth. Imagine two tribes during early human civilization, both facing the same mathematical realities of survival. Tribe A chooses safely, they live close to rivers, eat familiar foods, avoid unknown risks, and their survival strategies are as follows: Probability of maintaining current caloric intake: 85% Probability of small improvement: 15% Expected daily survival rate: 0.97 Tribe B chooses adventure, they explore new territories, try unfamiliar fruits, traverse dangerous terrain, and their strategy is as follows: Probability of failure (starvation, poisoning, death): 60% Probability of small harvest: 35% Probability of major discovery (new hunting grounds, Fertile Valley): 5% Expected daily survival rate: 0.89 Tribal A's conservative strategy seems better: higher daily survival probability, lower volatility, predictable outcomes, but compound interest is brutal. After 1000 days: Survival probability of tribe A: 0.97^1000 = 0.0000061% Survival probability of tribe B: (0.89^1000)× P (major discovery) = Huge difference in results Conservative tribes are doomed to extinction due to slow decline. Adventure tribes face a Twin Peaks outcome: most attempts will die, but a small number will not only survive, but will prosper and eventually dominate. The Jackpot Paradox in Evolution Under the action of compound interest, the arithmetic mean (the average expected result) and the geometric mean (the long-term median result) diverge catastrophically. Conservative strategies provide the illusion of being safe, but are doomed to failure. Gambling strategies may seem suicidal, but they are the only path to long-term success. In life, the biggest risk is not to take any risks. You have to take risks, fail, learn, and then reap huge gains. Conservative strategy (tribe A): Daily return: 0.97 (sustained 3% decline) Geometric mean: -3% daily Extinction time: about 115 days (ln (0.5)/ln (0.97019283746574839201) Gambling Strategy (Tribe B): Daily return: [-40%, + 10%, +500%], probability [0.6, 0.35, 0.05] Arithmetic mean: +5.5% daily Geometric mean: -5.8% daily in most ways, +∞ jackpot path 95% of attempts will go extinct faster, but 5% will dominate. The average value cannot be optimized. You have to work on optimizing the likelihood of extreme positive outcomes, even if it increases the probability of failure, but you have to take risks, that's the only way. We are minority descendants who gamble and win, and they have won the rewards of evolution. Everyone alive today carries the genetic imprint of an ancestral selection fluctuation. Dopamine stimulation from uncertain rewards isn't just entertainment, it's a survival mechanism designed to optimize multiplication rather than addition results. Innovation winners take all math Small innovations bring exponentially disproportionate returns. What happens when Tribe B's adventure is successful? They discovered fire, agriculture, or more advanced hunting techniques, and they gained a permanent survival advantage. Innovation Frontline: Two tribes: 2.1 children per family, population growth rate: about 0.5% per generation After innovation (tribe B begins to develop agriculture): Tribe A: still 2.1 children per family Tribe B: 2.3 children per family (10% advantage from improved nutrition) Just a 10% reproductive advantage leads to genetic optimization. After n generations: Population of tribes A and B: P₀ × )1.005(ⁿ, P₀ × )1.015019283746574839201ⁿ Proportion of tribe B in total population = 0192837465748392011.015019283746574839201ⁿ / [(1.005019283746574839201ⁿ + )1.015019283746574839201ⁿ] 100th generation: tribe B accounts for 67% of the population 300th generation: tribe B accounts for 97% of the population Within 300 generations (about 7500 years), a 10% reproductive predominance results in an almost complete replacement of genes in a conserved population. Genetic studies have repeatedly demonstrated this: Y-chromosome Adam: a male lineage expanded to account for about 60% of all males today Mitochondrial Eve: A female lineage that became the maternal ancestor of all modern humans Lactose tolerance provided a survival advantage of about 7500% in a 2-3% dairy farming culture of 3 years ago. This small advantage has grown from 0.1% to 35% in humans over 300 generations of compounding, increasing in frequency by 35,000%. Evolutionary hypergambling: "Bets" (genetic mutations) cost almost zero, just one DNA base pair The failure rate is about 99.99%, most mutations are neutral or harmful Successful bets bring exponential compounding until dominance. The pattern repeats at all scales: Individuals: People with more advanced tools feed their families better Tribes: Groups with more advanced agriculture support 100 times the population Species: A breakthrough (language, fire, agriculture) leads to global dominance DNA reflects this: a little innovation will lead to exponential compounding, and the first movers will be disproportionately rewarded. The reward structure favors extreme outcomes over moderate outcomes. We are not evolving to avoid risk, but to calculate risk and bet on asymmetric upside. When we started throwing bones, the oldest script was about 5000 years old. And the oldest dice predate words, which means that gambling is older than language. Before laws, money, cities, we were playing games of chance. We roll metatarsal bones, draw lots, and create meaning out of randomness. In Mesopotamia, dice are mental tools. The ancient Chinese used the randomness of the I Ching to divinate fate. The Romans rolled the dice before political decisions. In the Mahabharata, a kingdom is destroyed by a single bet. Opportunity is not independent of society, it is the foundation of society. Gambling became a primitive form of resource allocation, a ritualized source of conflict and a way of dividing social hierarchies. When you don't know what to expect, you roll the dice and agree to accept the result. It simulates risk in a controlled way and gambling is our culture. With the continuous development of human social civilization, our bets are also escalating. We trade across oceans, but we don't know if the ships will return; We wage war, but victory is not guaranteed; It took us 300 years to build the cathedral, and we don't know if anyone could finish it. But we're getting smarter, and we're building tools to manage the gambling instinct and scale it. The most trusted institution in modern society is simply a formal gambling system: modern enterprises...