Chapter 1: Your "Quick Money" Mindset is the Culprit Preventing You from Making Big Money — By Pickle Cat

I bought my first Bitcoin in 2013.

As a seasoned investor who has lived to 2026 and experienced over a decade of market cycles, I've seen countless ways this market can destroy and ruin people.

I've discovered that over this long period, there seems to be an undeniable ironclad rule:

That is, in this circle, the definition of "winning" is never how much money you make.
Everyone who has been involved in this circle has made money at least once, no matter how novice they are or how small their initial capital is; they can become a "genius" for a short time.
So what exactly is "winning"? It's making money and being able to hold onto that money many years later.

In other words, if you want to change your fate through the cryptocurrency world, you must first realize that this is not a competition of "who earns the most" or "who doubles their money the fastest", but a competition of "who survives to the end" .

But reality is cruel. Most of the "geniuses" become fuel, and only a small number of people can survive to the next cycle. Among these survivors, those who can truly achieve the snowballing effect of compound interest are extremely rare.

After October 11th, market sentiment returned to the familiar dull period.

That day, I lost many more friends in the crypto world whom I thought I could fight alongside for many years. Although this kind of "farewell" has happened countless times, every time I encounter it, I still subconsciously flip through some reflections I have written down over the years.

I think it's time to sort things out. To figure out that ultimate question: what exactly are the, and are there, replicable traits needed to survive in the crypto world?

To this end, I also chatted with a few old friends who are still active in the cryptocurrency circle, and that's how this article came about.

This article is my exclusive insight, a labor of love, and it will attempt to explain the following points:

Why are some people able to survive this periodic "sea of blood" while others are left defeated?
How can you maintain hope when you're suffering terribly in a bear market?
How can you become the person described above?

To fully understand this principle, we must first return to basics and forget what others have told you about this circle.

"The only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing."
— Socrates

The article will briefly explain the history of the cryptocurrency world and its essence. Most newcomers will ignore these elements, because understanding these things is not as satisfying (or painful) as immediately opening a trade and making (or losing) money.

But in my personal experience, it is precisely this overlooked secret that makes people fearless in the face of bull and bear markets, just as philosopher George Santayana said: "He who does not remember the past is doomed to repeat it."

In this article, I will guide you to understand:

I. What exactly triggers a bull market resurgence in cryptocurrencies, and how do you distinguish between a "market rally" and a "last gasp"? This includes three case studies and a basic set of "judgment criteria" that you can directly apply.

II. What exactly do you need to do to increase your chances of catching the "next big opportunity"?

III. What are the common, replicable traits of those who can survive multiple bloodbath cycles and continue to make money?

If you've ever decentralized your wallet in the crypto world, then this article is for you .

I. The real driving force that broke the sideways trend in the cryptocurrency market

Whenever people ask why the crypto market has stagnated, the answer is almost always the same:

A new narrative has not yet been born!
The institutions have not yet fully entered the market!
The technological revolution has not yet begun!
It's all the fault of those market makers and KOLs who prey on people!
It's all because of so-and-so and so-and-so exchange/project/company that messed things up!

These factors are indeed important, but solving them is never the real reason to end the crypto winter.

If you navigate through enough bull and bear markets, you'll see a clear pattern:

The resurgence of the crypto market has never been because it has become more like the traditional system, but because it has once again reminded people of the suffocating aspects of the old system .

The stagnation in crypto is not due to a lack of innovation, nor is it solely a liquidity issue.

Essentially, it's a failure of collaboration —more precisely, stagnation occurs when all three of the following fail simultaneously:

Capital has no interest
Emotions exhausted
The current consensus can no longer explain "why we should care about this circle".

In this situation, the weak prices are not because crypto is "dead," but because there are no new elements that can create synergy among new participants .

This is precisely the root of most people's confusion.

They always believe the next cycle will be triggered by a "better, more groundbreaking" product, feature, or new narrative. But these are merely effects, not causes . The real turning point will only emerge after a deeper level of consensus has been reached.

If you can't see this logic, you'll only continue to be led by the nose by market noise, becoming the easiest prey to be harvested by those manipulators who are manipulating the market.

This is why people are always chasing the "next hot trend," trying to become ultimate diamond traders, only to find themselves entering the market too late, or worse—buying the most worthless of worthless cryptocurrencies.

If you want to develop a true investment instinct—the kind that allows you to spot opportunities early on , instead of ending up feeling hopelessly lost like a novice investor after every project launches— you first need to learn how to discern:

The difference between consensus and narrative

The truth is, what has pulled the crypto world out of its winter every time is always the same thing: the evolution of consensus .

In this circle, "consensus" refers to the fact that humanity has found a new way to financialize certain "abstract elements" (such as beliefs, judgment, identity, etc.) through cryptocurrencies and to conduct large-scale collaboration around them.

Please note: consensus is by no means the same as narrative. And this is where the cognitive biases of most people begin.

Narrative is a story shared by everyone .

Consensus is the collective action of everyone .

Narratives are spoken, consensus is achieved through actions.

Events attract attention, while consensus retains the crowd.

Narrative without action → Short-lived euphoria
Only actions without narrative → Evolution of the performance
Only when both conditions are met will a true major cycle begin.

To understand the intricacies of this, you need to take a long-term view and approach it from a broader perspective.

When you quickly go through a brief history of encryption, you will find that:

At the core of all narratives, there is aggregation —and that is consensus .

In 2017, ICOs were the ultimate "organizational" technique of the era. Essentially, it was a coordination mechanism that brought together people who believed in the same story, converging their funds and beliefs in one place.

Basically, it's saying, "I have a PDF and a dream, wanna bet?"

Later, IDO took this "organizational gathering" to decentralized exchanges, turning fundraising into a permissionless, free-play "ritual" .

Then came the DeFi summer of 2020, which brought together "financial labor." We became the back-office staff of that never-closing bank: lending, collateralizing, arbitrage, searching day and night for that 3000% annualized return, praying every night that it wouldn't run away when we woke up.

Then came NFTs in 2021, which brought together not just capital, but also people who resonated with a shared culture , aesthetic, or ideology. At the time, everyone was asking, "Wait, why would I buy a picture?" "That's not just a picture, that's culture."

Everyone is looking for their own "tribe." Your little picture is your passport, a digital "one of us" badge, which is your ticket to enter advanced group chats and high-end gatherings.

By 2024, in the era of Memecoin , this trend could no longer be ignored. At this point, people almost stopped caring about the technology. What it truly brought together was emotion , identity, and collective banter within the community.

What you're buying isn't just a white paper. What you're buying is that phrase, "Those who know, know, and you understand why I'm laughing (or crying) hehe." What you're buying is a "community" that will make you feel less alone when the price of the coin drops by 80%.

Today, we have the era of prediction markets . They no longer aggregate emotions, but rather judgment and shared beliefs about the future. Furthermore, these beliefs have truly achieved borderless flow.

Take the US presidential election as an example, a global event. But if you're not American, you don't have the right to vote. In prediction markets, while you still can't vote, you can bet on your beliefs. At this point, the real shift becomes obvious.

Cryptocurrencies are no longer just about moving money; they are redistributing power over "who has the final say."

With each cycle, new dimensions are incorporated into this larger system: money, faith, financial labor, culture, emotions, judgment, ____? What will be next?

You'll find that every time the crypto space expands beyond its core, it essentially brings people together in a new way. Each stage brings not just more users, but also a new reason for people to stay—that's the key.

The focus has never been on the token itself; the token is merely a topic that brings everyone together so they can participate. What truly flows within this system are the elements that can support increasingly large-scale native consensus .

To put it bluntly: what's actually flowing through that pipeline isn't "money" at all. It's us, this group of people, learning how to reach increasingly larger and more complex consensuses without a boss overseeing us.

To understand this more thoroughly, take a look at the following simple "three-fuel model":

Liquidity (macroeconomic risk appetite, dollar liquidity, leverage, etc.) is like oxygen injected into the market; it determines how fast prices can move.
Narrative (why people care, how it is interpreted, the common language) attracts attention, and it determines how many people will look here.
The underlying structure of consensus (common behavior, repetitive actions, decentralized collaboration methods) affects persistence, determining who will truly remain when prices cease to offer returns.

Liquidity may temporarily drive up prices, and narratives may briefly ignite attention, but only the construction of a new consensus can empower people to take win-win actions that go beyond simple buying and selling .

This is precisely why many so-called crypto bull runs often fail to become true bull runs: they have liquidity and weave good stories, but the actual consensus among people remains unchanged.

So how do we distinguish between a "last gasp" and a genuine "upgrade of consensus"?

Don't look at the price first—look at the behavior . True consensus upgrades often show similar signals over time, changing the way we get together to "play".

Each time, we start with the behavior, not the price.

If you want to learn to discern for yourself, simply looking at the concepts is useless. You need to review the history of encryption, learn from it, and summarize it. Only then will you have a chance to discover the key points in the next consensus upgrade.

Below are four parts, including three extended case studies that I have compiled, and finally a basic checklist that can be used to identify whether the next consensus upgrade is coming, and how to determine whether the behavior caused by the narrative will truly be retained.

Extended Case Study 1: The Booming Development of ICOs in 2017 VS Early Trials

 BTC and ETH prices during the ICO boom (mid-2017 - mid-2018)

This marks the first time the crypto world has figured out how to coordinate people and capital on a massive global scale. Billions of dollars are flowing onto the blockchain, not into mature products, but into ideas .

Before this, there were certainly early attempts, such as Mastercoin in 2013 and Ethereum's own crowdfunding in 2014. These attempts were interesting, but remained niche. They had not yet created a behavioral model that could draw everyone into the same orbit and be shared globally.

In the early days of encryption, the rules were actually quite simple:

Mining, trading, holding, and using it to buy things (like on the dark web).

Of course, there were also many Ponzi schemes that promised "quick riches" at the time, but we didn't have a standardized way to get a group of strangers to bet on the same dream together on the blockchain .

The DAO in 2016 was a true "epiphany" moment for crypto. It proved that a group of complete strangers could pool funds using only code. But frankly... the tools were primitive, the technology fragile, and it was ultimately crippled by hackers. The behavioral pattern emerged, but it wasn't sustainable.

Then 2017 arrived, and everything became "mass-producible" .

Ethereum and the (now more mature) ERC-20 standard transformed token issuance into a mass production process. Suddenly, the "underlying logic" of the crypto world underwent a revolution:

Financing activities are now fully integrated onto the blockchain, becoming the new normal.
The white paper has become an "investment target".
We traded a "minimum viable product" for a "minimum viable PDF".
Telegram has become a financial infrastructure.

This entirely new "trend" behavior drew in millions and fueled an epic bull market. But more importantly, it permanently reshaped the DNA of the crypto world .

Even after the bubble burst, we never reverted to the "old model." The idea that anyone, anywhere, can crowdfund for a protocol has taken root.

Yes, most ICOs back then were outright scams or Ponzi schemes. This kind of dirty work existed before 2017, and it still exists now in 2026. But the way people collaborate and allocate funds has changed forever; this is what's known as "consensus upgrade."

Extended Case Study 2: The Summer of DeFi in 2020 VS. The Fake Bull Market

 BTC and ETH prices during the DeFi Summer (June 2020 - September 2020)

This era also represents a true "consensus upgrade," because even without a dramatic price surge, people are beginning to use crypto assets as "financial instruments." This is a stark contrast to the ICO era—when price increases and user behavior were mutually reinforcing and symbiotic.

Before 2020, apart from the ICO frenzy, the experience in the crypto world was basically "buy, hold, trade, and then pray".

(Well, unless you're a miner... or doing something shady.)

But now, people have gradually developed on-chain muscle memory , forever changing the industry. We've learned:

Lending: Earn "rent" by depositing your crypto assets into the protocol.
Collateralized lending: Gain purchasing power without selling your crypto assets, just like taking out a mortgage on your house.
Liquidity mining: weekly shifting of funds to the most profitable areas, with funds moving left and right.
Being an LP: You put your chips on the table for others to trade, and then take a cut of the transaction fees.
Revolving mortgage: mortgage, lend, re-mortgage, and re-lend, layering leverage and returns.
Governance: Actively participate in voting on protocol rules, not just betting on token prices.

During the DeFi summer, even when ETH and BTC traded sideways, the entire ecosystem felt "alive," and its activity level did not depend on a sharp rise in price.

It shattered the "pure casino" mindset, because for the first time, the crypto world felt like a productive financial system , rather than just a speculative toy.

DeFi projects such as Compound ($COMP), Uniswap ($UNI), Yearn Finance ($YFI), Aave ($AAVE), Curve ($CRV), Synthetix ($SNX), and MakerDAO ($MKR/$DAI) have become "banks of the internet".

Even a radical experiment like SushiSwap is significant. Its "vampire attack" directly drained liquidity from Uniswap, proving that incentive mechanisms can indeed allocate funds like commanding an army.

Then... what followed was a false revival, a false bull market, a "last gasp before the storm."

For example, those imitation farms named after food items—Pasta, Spaghetti, Kimchi. They didn't bring any new coordinated behaviors; most were as fleeting as they appeared.

By 2021, DeFi was still vibrant (projects like dYdX and PancakeSwap were growing rapidly), but the era of rampant growth was over, and people had already moved on to the next shining narrative (NFTs).

Looking back from today's (2026) perspective, you'll find that 2020 was the true birth of the "on-chain economy." Almost everything we do now (from airdropping points and chasing TVL to Layer 2 incentive programs) follows the same approach as in 2020.

In the aftermath of the DeFi summer, if a new product cannot provide users with a substantial reason to "stay on-chain," it will be difficult for it to make any waves.

Incentives can indeed boost short-term activity, but if these rewards fail to establish a lasting community habit (a new paradigm), the project will quickly become a ghost town the moment the subsidies run out.

Extended Case Study 3: The NFT Era Revolutionizes Social Habits

 The prices of BTC and ETH during the NFT craze (early 2021 - mid 2022).

2021 was a "perfect storm": global monetary easing and the macro liquidity environment, institutional entry, the NFT boom, DeFi growth, and the public chain wars all resonated simultaneously, pushing the market to its peak. This case study will focus on NFTs—one of the most influential core catalysts of this cycle.

If the DeFi summer was the era of geeks buried in studying liquidity curves, then 2021 was the year the crypto world finally gained "personality." We stopped chasing yields and began to pursue a sense of atmosphere, identity , and belonging .

For the first time, digital items are no longer just "things" that can be copied and pasted at will. They have verifiable provenance . You're not just "buying a picture," but a digital receipt that says "you are the original owner," with the entire blockchain serving as your witness.

This completely rewrote the social script . People no longer try to outmaneuver each other in calculations, but rather to flaunt their status .

Today, profile pictures have become passports . Owning a CryptoPunk or a BAYC has become a digital "proof of belonging to a social circle." Your profile picture is no longer your cat, but your ticket to enter the "global elite circle."

At this point, a barrier appears . Your wallet becomes your membership card. If you don't have the corresponding assets, you can't access those private Discord channels, attend exclusive parties, or claim your exclusive airdrops.

There's also the issue of IP ownership . BAYC granted commercial rights to the holders, successfully expanding the "ownership revolution" beyond its original scope. Suddenly, strangers began collaborating around their "ape" to develop merchandise, music, and streetwear.

Most importantly, it attracted a large number of "outsiders." Artists, gamers, and creators who didn't care about annualized returns or liquidation mechanisms suddenly found a reason to own a wallet.

Crypto is no longer just about finance. It has become a native cultural layer of the internet .

From the perspective of consensus and habits:

The collection series will replace the liquidity pool.
What replaces the total value locked is the floor price and social capital.
What replaces the benefits is a sense of belonging.

Of course, a "last gasp" followed...

First, we have witnessed a wave of "imitators".

Once the "Boring Ape" model was proven successful, imitators sprang up like mushrooms. They had stories, but no soul. Countless similar-looking collectible series emerged, essentially all "Boring Apes, but with hamsters as the main character," promising fairytale-like development paths. Most of them became worthless, or rather, worthless air with a price.

Then came the frenzy of "brushing orders".

Platforms like LooksRare and X2Y2 attempted to mechanically apply the logic of "DeFi mining" to NFTs, creating so-called "transaction mining." The result was a group of "scientists" engaging in self-dealing and insider trading. The trading volume on the books appeared astonishing, making it seem like the market had recovered, but in reality, it was all bots engaging in wash trading to exploit loopholes; genuine investors had long since left.

Finally, there's the frenzy of "celebrities making money off others."

Almost every A-list or B-list celebrity has launched a series because their agents told them it was a "new money-printing machine." Lacking any real consensus or community behind them, these projects disappear even faster than trending topics on TikTok.

So, what's the lesson here?

Just like the ICO and DeFi summer, the NFT bubble burst. But the behavioral patterns from that era are permanent , lasting long enough to permanently change the industry.

Encryption is no longer just a digital bank; it has become a native cultural layer of the internet. We no longer ask, "Why do we need a JPEG?", but are beginning to understand what these actions mean.

For example:

Brands are beginning to shift towards "digital passports" and "Community as a Service" (CaaS).
In this era of AI saturation, provenance has become the standard for digital authenticity.
The community-first release model has now become the preferred manual for every new consumer startup.

The habit of collaboration has survived, and we have learned to belong to the digital culture, and we will never regress to the era when we were just "users".

Want to hone your "investment acumen"? How can you do it?

Now that you've read one-third of this article, I've provided three detailed case studies to demonstrate how to distinguish between a false consensus upgrade ("a last gasp") and a genuine upgrade.

Without exaggeration, I could write hundreds more pages of case studies on Meme coin and prediction markets, but it's better to teach someone how to fish than to give them a fish. So I've left this part of the analysis for you to review and experience on your own .

Furthermore, failed narratives and failed "consensus upgrades" are also worth studying , such as Metaverse 1.0 in 2021-2022 and SocialFi 1.0 in 2023-2024. Although they only left behind the remnants of a "one-off" phenomenon and did not immediately reshape behavioral habits, this does not mean their end. True "consensus upgrades" are rarely achieved overnight. Just as Mastercoin pioneered ICOs in 2013, it remained dormant for several years until it truly exploded and massively changed industry behavior in 2017. Early failures are stepping stones to understanding.

Don't ignore it just because it's "cooled down ." The next "consensus upgrade" may be something entirely new, or it may be the revival of "old things" that have failed in the past in "some new form." When such a thing happens, this realization will be a great opportunity for you.

The best way to hone your "investment acumen" is to personally put in the practical effort to conduct research, analysis, and verification .

Ask yourself if you understand what the masses are doing. If you can't observe the changes in behavior , then you can't detect the shifts in the tide .

Before concluding Part One, I've also prepared a basic checklist to help identify whether the next consensus upgrade is imminent. I call it "5 Questions for Investors to Protect Themselves" :

1. Were there any "outsiders" present ?

A group of participants has emerged whose primary purpose is not to make money; the people you see are no longer just there to speculate on cryptocurrencies. They are creators, builders, or people seeking identity. If the room only contains traders, then the room is essentially empty.

(If you're a trader reading this—well, I am too. You and I both know that PvP alone isn't enough to make this game work.)

2. Can it pass the "excitation decay" test?

Observe what happens when the rewards dry up or prices plateau. If people stay, it means a habit has been formed. If they disappear as soon as the "free lunch" stops, then you're just facing a pile of air with price tags.

3. Are they choosing "daily habits" rather than "positions"?

Beginners only look at candlestick charts, while experts observe what people do every day. If they develop daily habits around this system, it's a permanent upgrade.

4. Is there a phenomenon where "behavior > experience"?

The real transformation happens when tools are still primitive, fragmented, and inefficient. If people are willing to tolerate a poor user interface to participate, then that behavior is "effective." By the time applications become silky smooth and sophisticated, it's too late.

5. (The most important point!!) Is it possible to "generate electricity with love"?

This is crucial. The shift is complete when people start defending a system because it forms part of their identity, and not just because they'll lose money.

Therefore, if you only focus on price and endlessly fantasize about buying at a certain price, you are likely to be the reason why you always "sell the big trend too early," "can't hold on," "always have a mental breakdown," and "can't sleep when you have a position." The reason why a huge bullish candlestick appears is because the behavior pattern has already changed several months ago.

Prices are a result of this shift; prices are merely a lagging indicator that finally acknowledges that the world has moved forward.

II. If you can't increase your wealth by 1000x, at least increase your knowledge by 10x.

I know what you're thinking right now.

"Okay, I understand the underlying logic now—behavioral changes, upgraded collaboration, and so on. Theoretically, I know what to look for. But when the next consensus upgrade actually happens, chaos and opportunity will coexist..."
So, which things can actually increase in value by 1000 times? More importantly, how can I identify these things early so I can buy them aggressively?

To be honest, this is the real world, not a fantasy novel, and this question alone is invaluable.

If someone is confident enough to look you in the eye and give you a "5-step wealth secret" they've somehow gotten their hands on, they either want you to help them out so they can help you, or they want you to spend tens of thousands of dollars to buy their "secret little class."

Why do I say that? Because every new cycle is a completely new game of coordination .

You can't expect to use the script from the 2020 DeFi summer and rely on this strategy to predict which memes will explode in 2024/2025. Even if you're a top meme hunter today, there's no guarantee your approach will dominate the prediction market in 2026.

"Path dependence" —it has harmed so many people.

(However, nothing is absolute. If your last name is Trump, then...you're right, after all, you're both masters of charting. Congratulations on being unparalleled in both fields.)

No one can predict the future, but at the very least, we can lay a solid foundation and build a basic framework so that when a real opportunity comes, we can understand and learn it 10 times faster than others .

Having your own framework doesn't guarantee you'll earn more than in the last round, but it gives you a huge head start compared to newbies who are just there to gamble.

The framework consists of three parts: the underlying logic of the encryption cycle, the encryption knowledge structure, and the value anchoring system.

Part One is now complete. We will now move on to Part Two, which is "What exactly should I learn, and what are some learning methods?"

But a thousand people will have a thousand different interpretations of Hamlet; there is no such thing as "absolute correctness."

Therefore, I have included two of my personal suggestions below.

Recommendation 1: Mengmeng becomes the Conan of the blockchain.

Below is a list of essential basic skills , all of which can be learned 100% online for free . No paid courses or "master" guidance are required. The only things you need to pay for are your determination and time:

First, you need to improve your ability to identify "organized attacks," otherwise you'll always be the one left holding the bag. Learn to skillfully examine wallet history, holding distribution, bundled transactions, and the source and flow of funds, and be able to sniff out any suspicious on-chain activity.

Second, understand market mechanisms to assess potential supply shocks and avoid drastic liquidations. This requires knowing where to find and understand: order book depth, spreads, exchange net inflows/outflows, token unlocking and unlocking schedules, Mcap/TVL ratio, open interest, funding rates, and macroeconomic fund flows, etc.

Third, if you don't want to be devoured alive in the "dark forest," you at least need to know how MEV works, otherwise you won't even know when you're being "sandwiched" (my hard-earned lesson).

If you want to learn more deeply and outpace those around you , you also need to learn to identify fake transactions/volume manipulation/wash trading, arbitrage for points, and the "low liquidity/high FDV" trap to the greatest extent possible. If you're participating in airdrops, you need to understand what the anti-Syllabus mechanism is.

Another important point is that you should automate some of the tasks related to the information flow , such as various data anomaly alerts, news filtering, narrative filtering, and noise reduction. Now, with Vibe Coding, the basic barrier to entry for all of this has been lowered, and anyone can learn it.

In 2026, almost everyone I know (including those without any CS background) is using homemade tools to filter out junk information and find opportunities. If you're still relying entirely on "manually finding information," that's probably why you're always one step behind.

If you don't invest the determination, time, and effort to build this foundation, you're choosing "hard mode." On a smaller scale, this means you're always a step behind others or miss many opportunities; on a larger scale, it means being scammed, having your money stolen, or being drained dry until you finally break down and start learning (or simply give up and quit).

I know, because I've been through the same thing , falling into all sorts of traps, such as being scammed by strangers and "friends," getting caught in various Ponzi schemes, encountering all sorts of bizarre insider trading schemes, backdoor contracts, having my hot wallet stolen, being scammed in over-the-counter trading, and even being victimized by social engineering. And that doesn't even include the three times I was liquidated.

In addition to these "technical" tips, I've also compiled some "social Conan" level tips that you can directly use to avoid being scammed .

Start with the basics : Has the project's official account changed its name more than 10 times? Were its previous accounts associated with any fraudulent or abandoned projects? There are many tools that can check account name change history, so use them. Before investing, verify that the team exists and that the founders and core members have accounts on platforms like LinkedIn, GitHub, and Twitter.

If they claim to have worked for well-known companies or graduated from prestigious universities, you should verify it. After all, forged Stanford and Berkeley degrees, as well as fake resumes from Meta, Google, and Morgan Stanley, are much more common than people think.

The same applies to claims of "investment from a certain VC," "incubation by," or "partnership with," some "well-known investors" may never have actually provided any funding. Some "partners" are actually just indirect advisors, yet allow projects to use their logos. This happens far more frequently than you might expect ; I've been a victim myself.

In today's AI-driven world, fake interactions are becoming increasingly frequent and harder to detect. Can you spot an abnormal ratio of followers to interactions? Can you identify bot replies or AI-generated chatter on Discord, Telegram, and X?

If you couldn't do any of the above before, at least now you know where to start practicing.

Suggestion 2: Retreat into the world and sincerely cultivate good karma.

To put it simply, you need to know more people. Just like in the "finance circle," "tech circle," or "any circle," connections are your greatest asset.

I could write something like "50 things to look at when researching investment projects," but that would ultimately be a bunch of worthless nonsense. Why do I say that?

Because the real "core information" or alpha, when it still has the advantage of first-hand information, will never be publicly shared.

When a project starts to be heavily promoted by reputable voices in your information feed, you might still make money, but that's no longer the "life-changing 1000x return" you've come to the crypto world to pursue. That "best entry" window has long been welded shut.

This is why, in each cycle, most newcomers full of expectations to strike it rich end up as liquidity and then leave the circle. Because the information they receive is "lagging" news, filtered through layers of private circles.

Therefore, if you don't yet have one (or more) reliable "insider tips," then position management is your only safety net, so you must allocate most of your crypto assets to long-term assets.

Long-term investments don't require as much information asymmetry, nor do they have the agonizing time pressure of short-term trading. They give you breathing room to study public data, and you don't need to be the first to discover patterns. As long as a project survives even 1.5 cycles, you're likely to reap several waves of profits no matter when you enter the market.

At the same time, your long-term goal is to stop being a bystander and start becoming a participant . To do this, you need to have leverage. Aside from your family, the world is based on alliances of interest, and those you admire won't exchange firsthand information with someone who can't offer equivalent value.

You need to be "someone of value" or have "something of value" to exchange for it, whether it's expertise, field research, funding, or connections. Nobody is an expert in everything, which is why you can seize this opportunity.

The best approach is to genuinely and enthusiastically immerse yourself in an ecosystem: First, find a job in a project within a field you're interested in, whether you're a developer, operations specialist, or business development professional—"getting started is easier." Working is the fastest way to build a reputation and connect with your target audience.

Of course, having an entry-level web3 job won't give you everything you want right away, but it's a great start.

"But what if I lack experience and can't find a reliable encryption job?"

The good news is that , in 2026, the crypto industry is still not a "job desert" like traditional finance or tech giants. You don't need an elite degree and two stacks of elite internship experience, or to go through five or six rounds of interviews to get a job.

In this industry, your on-chain experience is your resume . If you have invested a lot of time in experimenting, going all in, and doing real work, you actually have more relevant experience than most "corporate professionals" who have switched careers.

What if you don't want to work? Well, you still have two options (which still require a lot of effort) :

If you're super smart and lucky enough to achieve great results on the blockchain, and you're not ready to retire yet, you can "link" that wallet address to your Twitter account. You won't even need to actively socialize; like-minded people will come to you uninvited.
Building a personal brand on X is a challenging and difficult process, and it's not a universally applicable suggestion.

There is no free lunch in the world, nor are there reliable shortcuts. 100% effort may not guarantee 100% success, but 100% lack of effort will definitely lead to 100% failure (unless your name is Barron Trump).

Ethena is the largest LP of BlackRock's BUIDL Fund, with an indirect position of approximately US$1.3 billion

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