In this round of market, the earning ability of different groups of people is also as sharply differentiated as the different types of copycat pull effects. Most ordinary leeks may not make much money or even lose money, while some big guys around them are still making money forever, and even making money faster than before. I think the main reasons for the gap are as follows:
1. Principal
Many retail investors may have only tens of thousands of U.S. dollars in capital, or even hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars. Once they are heavily invested in a certain coin and are trapped, there will not be much balance left to use, and they may even have no money left when they encounter a good opportunity.
The whales have a principal of more than 10m, and in the bull market, the interest from financial management farms (funding rates, option spreads, pendle financial management, staking projects, etc.) is enough to cover their daily consumption and the income from participating in degen.
A retail investor who loses a bet might lose half of their principal, while a whale losing a bet might only lose a day's or two's worth of interest and can recover after a few days of rent.
2. Information acquisition ability
Most retail investors lack timely and reliable channels for information; many might only have Binance Square, Weibo, and similar platforms on their phones. Understanding how to search for information on Twitter is already ahead of many retail investors, and knowing how to use Equation News to access news shows a strong information retrieval capability.
Referencing recently launched projects, $BIO.
Novice retail investors: Generally unaware, they might only learn about a new token when they accidentally see that Binance has launched a new launchpool, or they only realize it after it has officially launched.
Intermediate retail investors: They can quickly learn about the launch information of $BIO through platforms like Rhythm and Equation News, and they read announcements carefully to understand project information, circulation data, and so on.
Whales: When the investment news from Binance Labs comes out, they immediately research the $BIO IDO mechanism and participate in early IDOs. Or they might have learned about the DESCI narrative earlier and participated in 1-2 rounds of IDOs. After LABS investments and endorsements from CZ and Vitalik, they fill their positions in the 2-2.5 round IDOs. They also gather relevant information to know about tokens like $VITA $RSR or even $RIF $URO, positioning themselves for profit before the narrative takes off.
3. Actionability
I believe the actionability here can be divided into three dimensions: investment research capability, technical capability, and self-motivation.
Investment research capability: Can you achieve a relatively strong level of investment research in your area of focus, such as in the IDO (Initial DEX Offering) field? For instance, do you follow the $BIO IDO and calculate the odds? Similarly, in the airdrop field, have you calculated the odds of individual airdrop shares based on the project's financing amount and listing valuation?
Technical ability: If you discover a good opportunity that requires technical skills, can you solve it independently or find reliable partners to help you? For example, during the EVM inscription IDO, can you quickly mint EVM inscriptions in bulk? Or in a specific airdrop project, if a script can achieve bulk registration, are you still only clicking slowly with multiple accounts using a fingerprint browser?
Self-motivation: Upon discovering an opportunity, immediately research and place a bet. If it is confirmed as a major opportunity, place a heavy bet as early as possible.
I believe ordinary retail investors may not meet any of the three conditions mentioned above. Being relatively good at one of them is already impressive. However, some whales I know can generally excel in all three aspects through extreme individual effort or teamwork.
