The general subject is covered in drawdown and recovery. What follows is why the same figure is harder to hold here.
You watch all of it
An equity drawdown happens in sessions, with overnight gaps you did not experience. A crypto drawdown happens continuously, and every hour of it is available to be watched. The path is fully observable, and watching the path is what produces capitulation.
There is no forced break in which to stop looking, which is one more thing the missing close used to supply.
It arrives faster
Higher volatility plus leverage-driven amplification means the same percentage arrives in less time — the mechanism in why crypto volatility clusters. A decline that would take weeks elsewhere can take hours here.
Compressed time removes the adjustment period. There is no gradual acclimatisation to a new level, only the level.
Exiting costs more precisely when you want to
The conditions producing the drawdown are the ones where spreads widen and depth thins. So the exit is most expensive at the moment it is most wanted, which converts a paper loss into a realised one at the worst available price.
That is not a feeling — it is a cost, and it is why capitulating into a flush is expensive twice.
What actually helps
Deciding the exit before entering, so the decision is not made under pressure. Sizing such that an ordinary bad stretch is uncomfortable rather than existential. And not watching continuously, which is a real intervention rather than advice — the market being open at all hours does not mean the position needs supervision at all hours.
None of this is unique to crypto. What is unique is that nothing external enforces any of it.