Author: Yanz, Deep Tide TechFlow
On Chinese-language internet platforms, the term "execution line" has gone viral within two days. Starting from a video shared by American blogger "Prisoner A" about the life of a homeless person on the streets, this concept has swept across Chinese websites like Zhihu, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Bilibili, and has also sparked considerable discussion on X.
Posts comparing the cost of living in China and the United States have become popular, with more and more people discovering that Americans earn high salaries but spend the majority on rent, healthcare, and student loans, leaving little savings. 37% of Americans cannot come up with $400 for an emergency. For many living paycheck to paycheck, a minor illness, job loss, or car trouble can trigger a chain reaction.
The term "execution line" originally comes from gaming terminology, referring to a threshold of an enemy's health points where a set of skills can instantly kill them. In this discussion, the term has taken on a deeper meaning. It has been borrowed to describe a brutal financial collapse mechanism in real society, especially in the United States: once an ordinary person's savings, income, or credit falls below a critical point, the entire system triggers an automatic process, pushing the person into an irreversible underclass—unemployment, debt, homelessness, or even giving up on life.
Why has this concept become so popular? I think it's because it ruthlessly punctures the sweet illusion of the American Dream, allowing people to see the cruel reality after the "shattering of the American Dream."
In 2025, with global economic turmoil and U.S. debt exceeding $38 trillion, inflationary pressures have left the middle class teetering. But this execution is not just a social meme; upon closer thought, if the "execution line" in the U.S. shatters dreams, turning our gaze back to the crypto world, the "execution line" here is even more sobering.
The harvesting mechanism in the crypto space is more brutal and more globalized than the execution line in American society. The U.S. execution line slowly harvests through medical bills, unemployment, and debt, while execution in the crypto world often completes within minutes or hours: leveraged positions liquidated, projects rug pulling, hacker attacks—funds can go to zero overnight.
There is no government bailout, no unemployment benefits, only cold, on-chain records becoming a bloody history.
How can one say that crypto in 2025 is not a large-scale moment of awakening? The anticipated peak of the bull market instead became a year of bloodshed for many retail investors. The most unforgettable was the flash crash on October 10th.
At 4:50 AM on October 11th, U.S. President Trump suddenly posted, emphatically reiterating retaliatory plans to impose 100% tariffs on China starting November 1st. Market panic instantly exploded. Overnight, global financial markets underwent a major upheaval. The three major U.S. stock indices all fell sharply: the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.9%, the S&P 500 plummeted 2.71%, and the Nasdaq Composite plunged 3.56%, marking its largest single-day drop since April. European stock markets and the crude oil market were also strongly impacted.
And in the crypto space, which had fragile liquidity at the time, the largest liquidation in crypto history was unfolding on exchanges: over 1.6 million people were instantly "executed," with $19.3 billion in positions liquidated. Bitcoin fell 13%, Ethereum plunged 17%, and the altcoin sector crashed by 85%, with many small-cap tokens wicking to zero. It was a doomsday scenario littered with casualties.
This was an epic cleansing, but clearly not the only one. Throughout 2025, hacker attacks and Rug Pulls emerged one after another.
In February, Bybit exchange suffered the largest single theft in its history, losing $1.5 billion, with over 400,000 Ethereum taken.
In July, the Cetus protocol was stolen from, losing $220 million.
In September, the HyperVault protocol was accused of a rug pull, siphoning off $3.6 million in user funds......
A Chainalysis report shows that total crypto theft in 2025 exceeded $3.4 billion, hitting a new record, with North Korean hacker groups responsible for over $2 billion. These events often target retail investors: newcomers FOMOing in and buying high, going all-in with leverage, blindly trusting KOL shills. Once something goes wrong, funds evaporate directly.
Obviously, compared to the slow execution in American society, crypto is more like a blitzkrieg. Emotions and leverage amplify all risks, but the margin for error? One can only laugh; it's almost zero.
It's not just countries; any system with a low margin for error can easily transform into a harvesting machine. The key to resisting execution lies in strengthening safety net mechanisms: improving regulation, controlling debt, and building a multi-layered social safety net to give individuals breathing room and a chance to recover.
Countries can establish social security, provide a buffer, and avoid a fatal blow. But retail investors in the crypto market face potential collapse at any time due to 24/7 trading. The proliferation of leverage tools allows newcomers to easily open high-leverage positions. Anonymity and weak regulation reduce the cost of rug pulls and amplify the risk of falling into traps. These, once seen as shortcuts to the "sweet dream" of wealth freedom, have now also become fuel accelerating the arrival of execution, rushing toward everyone.
The heated discussion about the execution line marks the shattering of the American Dream, and it should also be the moment of awakening for crypto. Rather than believing you are the only lucky one, it's better to spend more effort on building personal discipline and a more resilient asset allocation. Participate rationally, build defenses, and perhaps we can teeter on the "line" for a few more years.
After all, in the reality after the dream awakens, the most important thing is to survive.
