Why do you say that?
When you have little work experience, you may be curious and yearning when you see the recruitment in the blockchain industry.
On the one hand, there is curiosity about the blockchain industry itself. "Decentralization" and "global distributed office" in the blockchain industry have always looked beautiful, but the reality is that most employees can only stay in a high-end or ordinary office building (or joint office) Work together and move bricks together.
On the other hand, this industry has always been full of myths about "getting rich quickly". So-and-so bought so-and-so coins before and made 100 times the profit. Which seemingly ordinary programmer in the company achieved financial freedom three years ago. When I went to the opening meeting, I met either a partner or a VP level or above. So-and-so was from Wall Street before. Coming back from an investment bank...
What kind of monsters is this industry filled with?
The first level: former overseas investment bank practitioners, former traditional financial practitioners (there are also many P2P big guys), people from other industries, media, etc., who are mainly responsible for project research and development, publicity and packaging, making the project look high-end.
The second level: KOL, KOC and other community leaders are responsible for project promotion, mainly promoting new coins.
Analytical articles, short videos, etc. that appear to be objective and rational are all the result of the intertwined interests of all parties. In this industry, there is no absolute fairness and objectivity.
This is not an anecdote in the financial world. A documentary called "The Stealer" restored the inside story of Wall Street's financial elites and politicians, economists, and financial journalists seeking mutual benefits and compromising with each other during the 2008 financial crisis.
This is also applicable to the blockchain "currency circle" that is not mentioned in the financial circle, but it is not so advanced.
Two stereotypes about the blockchain industry
People’s impressions of the blockchain industry generally fall into two extremes:
High-end and mysterious: full of all kinds of terms that ordinary people can't understand, making people confused, and Bitcoin, which can represent this industry to a certain extent, has unpredictable price rises and falls...
Monsters, ghosts, and scammers are rampant: all kinds of altcoins and air coins are rampant. It only takes a moment to go from getting rich to zero. When you go online, your hair is broken, your team runs away, and you have nowhere to defend your rights...
But in fact, these impressions are actually impressions of the currency circle, which is currently the most lively place in the blockchain industry.
Therefore, the title of this article can also be understood as, do not easily enter currency-related blockchain projects - do not come to the currency circle.
Why are young people advised not to enter the blockchain industry (currency circle)?
The industry is too young, there is no need to race against it on your own time.
This industry is very young. Take China as an example. OKCoin and Huobi were established in 2013. Binance, a latecomer, has always been playing international cards, and its essential technology and operation teams are also in China. They only appeared more than ten years after the rapid development of China's Internet. At two different historical nodes, the Internet industry matured and the business model was clearly visible; in contrast, the blockchain industry was waiting for support, and everything was New, rules are hard to find. In cross-industry cooperation and management, there is a greater chance of encountering things that do not follow the rules.
If everyone doesn't follow the rules, will you choose to follow the rules? The answer is vague, and you can't overestimate human nature.
Coming here directly without any social experience is definitely not the best choice. It looks beautiful, and the future pie is also very round, but in fact, the illusory sense of value will make people boil frogs in warm water, because they have never really touched the value, as if the team has been working hard to make an emperor's piece. New clothes, those who know them say they are good, but to outsiders they are actually illusory.
So what's the fun in this circle? What is the value of the project? Where do users come from? What are the specific applications of the project?
The answer is generally, we don’t know.
2. Choosing whom to fight alongside is more important.
Secondly, this is a non-serious industry. I don’t mean it seriously, not all projects are just for fun, but in most cases, what you see, hear, and experience will make you realize that “this kind of operation can still be done”?
Specifically, you can see it in various major communities. As small as a poster, as large as an AMA (online Q&A) with project leaders, you will find the secret. People in the currency circle seem to have never really existed in this world. Their names are fake/nicknames/English names. Very few people come forward with their real names and say, "I am the founder partner of this project."
Bitcoin plummeted 40% on March 13, 2020. It seems that the story of "digital gold" is coming to an end. The beginning of this year seems to be the outline in some digital currency white papers. The global epidemic, the plummeting US stock market... people Constantly flowing from one belief to another, non-stop changing the thinking of survival in crisis.
There are shades of gray in any industry, just because rules and laws restrict these unreasonable areas. Now everyone in the blockchain industry wants to be the one who sets the rules. If this industry is to be renamed one day, it will not depend on a certain project, a certain exchange, a certain mine, or a certain technology, but all aspects of the entire blockchain industry must work hard to destigmatize it. Perhaps the first step is to start with exchanges boycotting the listing of spicy chicken coins.
3. Briefly summarize the essence of the operation of the currency circle, from 0 to 1, and then from 1 to 0
The most basic division of responsibilities of the currency circle project: technology, operation, market
If the entire project is regarded as a factory, then the technology produces coins, the operations package coins, and the market distributes coins.
Needless to say, the technical team is the foundation of a project. Once the code is completed, the coins will come out.
The operations team is mainly responsible for promotion, using various forms, as long as they are available on the market and are not blocked, such as SEO, social media, and communities. The content can be text, pictures, short videos, or more specific. It's H5, long pictures, posters, etc... If the operation team is broken down, it includes content operation, event operation, new media operation, community operation, etc. No matter how many people there are in the team and how many types of work, the purpose is to package the product (coin) well. It looks like that, then it goes public, sells, and completes financing.
For the marketing team, sometimes marketing and operations are not completely separated. The responsibilities of the market may be more external, and external brand cooperation, media cooperation, community cooperation, etc. are all within the scope of responsibilities.
It seems that operation is a dirty work, and marketing work is more glamorous. The chance of the marketing person in charge appearing in the AMA poster in Moments is much greater than that of the operation person in charge.
Technology, operations, and market parties worked together to produce, develop, and sell a coin from scratch. The entire process from 0 to 1 has been experienced. If you are on an exchange, this process from 0 to 1 may be slightly different. Some exchanges have dedicated project incubation teams, which sounds mysterious. It can be simply understood as self-produced and self-sold, from scratch to listed. If the exchange has its own traffic and a good user base, it will not worry about how to sell the project. , how much to sell.
So, what happened from 1 to 0?
The currency circle is changing too fast. The changes here are:
The market changes rapidly and cycles cycle quickly. In the cycle of more than ten years in the traditional financial market, the digital currency market may be finished for you in a month. Last month, Bitcoin was worth 10,000 US dollars, but now it has been halved to 5,000 US dollars. We also I don’t dare to tell, and we don’t dare to ask.
The policy situation is unclear. Policies on the blockchain industry often change, sometimes tightening and sometimes relaxing. Generally speaking, the state strongly supports blockchain technology, such as blockchain traceability, certificates, and bills on the chain. In finance, there is research on central bank digital currency DCEP... However, the issuance and sale of ordinary tokens has always been in an unknown state, but 1C0 has been ordered to be banned. This is known to everyone. So how do you mean this project is not 1C0? Is the IEO that became popular last year a disguised version of 1C0? This is actually self-evident.
When looking at an industry, in addition to clarifying the normal business model, we also need to control the policy direction of the industry. For example, P2P and cash loans that were popular in the past few years... these businesses made investors a lot of money in the early days, but there are also people who are determined to make money but not spend it, and in the end they end up with nothing. When the industry is greatly affected by policies, the risks are very high. In the end, the basically formed pattern is that the leader stabilizes, and Xiao Luoluo can only try his best to catch up but can't get the soup.
To sum up, due to the changes in market conditions and policies, the currency circle project itself has become complicated and confusing. It is no longer news that the currency circle project team is fighting and running away. Young people can work in such projects and teams unless they have extremely strong people. A sense of ownership and belief in blockchain, otherwise it will be easy to be disrupted by these chaotic voices.
Personal value returns to zero:
who I am? What should I do? What's the point of doing this? ——Three Questions of the Soul...
The process of the project from 0 to 1 is also the process of continuous withdrawal and improvement of personal value. By the time it reaches this peak, your personal value has actually been drained of this project.
These experiences can even be said to be worthless in other industries.
Why do you say that? The way the outside world looks at the blockchain industry has become clear at the beginning of this article. The business logic and operating methods of the blockchain industry have no direct reference significance for traditional industries and the Internet industry. The concept of blockchain is too new, many concepts cannot be implemented, and there are too few operational samples. Unlike traditional industries that often generate hundreds of millions of turnover and millions of GMV, small projects can be considered new if their daily revenue can exceed double digits.
Of course, there is no need to get too entangled in the problem of zeroing out personal value across industries. Abandon the bad habit of being too ambitious in the blockchain industry and develop a good habit of doing everything to the extreme. Be down-to-earth, diligent and studious. This is universal. The rules are applicable everywhere.
Assets return to zero:
The end of a cryptocurrency project is nothing more than being listed on an exchange. Regardless of whether it is large or small, it can be regarded as meeting the audience in the secondary market. As for its performance, it depends on the market value management and community order calling capabilities behind it. At this point, part 1 of the currency circle project has been completed. As for when it will return to zero, I think it is only a matter of time.
If you hear that someone around you has become rich because of some insider information, you will also hear about someone who went bankrupt because of a contract. Or maybe that person was too greedy and failed to cash out in time when his net worth was almost over 100 million, and he continues to do the same as everyone else.
A friend in the currency circle recommended to me a WeChat official account created by his former colleague, which clearly introduced that he had done proxy investing in 2017. Agent investment is a special profession when the currency circle is the hottest. It is like a broker, matching transactions between projects and users. It is the early form of 1C0.
What the currency circle fears most is not being shameless, but being thin-skinned. When you see the overwhelming publicity of some project coins and altcoins, remember to just take a look and don’t buy them.
a little thought
(One advantage of posting articles on Zhihu is that they can be modified at any time, so that when you have new ideas, you can update them in time. I particularly like this. The following is the updated content.)
I haven't read it for a few days, and I found that some friends actually left messages about community operation issues. Let me talk about a similar situation I encountered before.
Overseas community operations generally include the operation of platforms such as Telegram/Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/Reddit/Github/Medium/Youtube. If you have a certain foreign language foundation (not limited to English), this type of work is not difficult in terms of skills. What is difficult is that you have to keep paying attention to hot topics, continue to follow up on community feedback, and collect hot topics - create topics - user feedback - guide topics -... and a series of operational actions also need to be adjusted according to the characteristics of different platforms.
This type of operation is not difficult for friends who are familiar with the platform. If you are a heavy user of these platforms, it can be said to be a piece of cake. If not, then first study the characteristics of each platform.
Telegram: An instant chat tool that can be managed by robots. Pay special attention to the handling of spam ads and maintain communication with the product. If users report problems such as product lags, inability to log in, slow withdrawals, etc., they will definitely be reported in the group. At this time Customer service and community administrators must appear immediately, otherwise it will cause confusion in public opinion.
Twitter: The foreign version of Weibo, which can discuss hot topics, post official event notices, etc.
Facebook is similar to Twitter, because FB is too difficult to use, and it basically just synchronizes with Twitter content.
Instagram: Picture-oriented. If possible, make the pictures more beautiful. Learn the text layout of Instagram bloggers and the hashtags of accounts in the same category. Instagram and Twitter pictures have different sizes.
Reddit: BBS forum for interesting topics, but I took a look and found that the popularity of blockchain is not very high...
GitHub: If the project is technology-oriented, you should publish more about the project rhythm and development status here.
Medium: understood as the foreign version of the blog, long articles, daily reports, weekly reports, monthly reports, project progress... can all be published here.
Youtube: You can make it yourself, or invite Youtubers to make it together (depending on your negotiation skills).
There are not many projects that can be done well in the above projects. It is best for communities in different countries to have local people do local translation and proofreading.
The essence of community operation is content. The content includes the product itself and the way of display. If the product itself is bullshit, no matter how it is displayed, it will ultimately give users air. So back to the topic, if it is just a mess of coins, not What real technology or practical application, then what is the purpose of your demonstration? I should know it in my mind.
It has to be said that the users and traffic this industry can attract are really very limited. For example, on Zhihu, if the same article is about e-commerce or consumption, the traffic will be much higher, because not many people pay attention to the blockchain, and those who pay attention to a certain project in the blockchain will definitely have more traffic. There are very few... Compared with traditional Internet operations or e-commerce operations, well... maybe there is no comparison at all, because they are different worlds, and you can't understand them at all.
I asked many friends who are engaged in the currency circle, and a large part of the reason is still: money. On the one hand, if the same experience is transferred to other fields, in the short term, the salary level will be slightly higher in the currency circle. On the other hand, there is a "gamble" mentality, wanting to use so-called connections and information to get first-hand investment information. But what can be 100% guaranteed is that when you have this kind of mentality, you will definitely be a leek.
One day I saw Liu Changyong, a Ph.D. in economics, making a short comment on cryptocurrency in a group chat:
The continued expansion of excessive financialization is a chronic disease of the fiat currency system. One of the fundamental tasks and relative advantages of decentralized cryptocurrency is to eradicate this chronic disease of the legal currency system. However, cryptocurrency has prematurely attracted the attention and pursuit of traditional finance, causing decentralized cryptocurrency itself to suffer from the disease of excessive financialization, and various centralized cryptocurrency have taken over the spotlight. These will be hit with the outbreak of conflicts in the legal currency system. At present, we should return to the true nature of cryptographic consensus and return to the right path of using asymmetric cryptography and distributed consensus to build a more secure, efficient and free digital economy.
This crypto is not that crypto. Bitcoin is only 11 years old now, but many other copycat projects are lucky to survive 2020.
As for blockchain technology, in fact, it has nothing to do with the currency itself, but it was originally the form of Bitcoin that showed the characteristics of blockchain technology. Just like in the Internet era, starting from the portal website, no one knows that it will eventually take various forms. To quote the famous economist Zhu Jiaming:
Blockchain does not belong to classical cases because it is neither a pure natural science nor a social science case, nor is it a case of "applied science" that people generally think of. It is a "paradigm" model revolution in which science, technology and social science are superimposed on each other.
Some of the applications we can think of now, including blockchain technology used in payment transaction settlement systems, government affairs, digital copyright, and supply chains, are stepping stones for this technology. The ultimate value of blockchain is reflected in changing society, rather than disrupting social order with mixed concepts such as the currency circle.