Building during bear markets means watching 90% of projects vanish while the survivors quietly ship—Ethereum went from $1,300 in 2018 to near-zero sentiment, yet teams kept deploying. Real construction happens when price is irrelevant and only conviction remains. The 2022-2023 bear saw Bitcoin miners accumulate at $16k while noise screamed capitulation; those who built infrastructure then are now running the network's most critical nodes.