Real influence and genuine feedback are what allow us to enter a positive cycle. Looking back at 2024, I hope that what I engage with and create in 2025 will be real and have positive value for the industry. (Background: Bitcoin is expected to break $200,000! Financial Times' comprehensive forecast for 2025: Trump launches a tariff war, Russia-Ukraine ceasefire, slow growth of the 'Seven Giants' in the US stock market...) (Background Supplement: Galaxy 2025 Cryptocurrency Predictions: Bitcoin to surge to $185,000 by year-end, ETH to break $5,500, DeFi explosion...) Everyone seems to be looking forward to 2025, driven by market reasons and hot topics. Project teams, retail investors, KOLs, VCs... everyone is ready to take big action. I am also part of this. But I am starting to be cautious; when everyone is eager to take big actions, how can I avoid being 'swept along' in a big move? Looking back at 2024, I hope that what I engage with and create in 2025 will be real and have positive value for the industry. Real information: Information echo chambers are everywhere. What we pursue is not more information but real information. Do not blindly trust a single channel. This year, the U.S. elections made me deeply aware of this. If you only look at Polymarket, you will always think Trump is a sure win; the fluctuations in the middle will catch you off guard. If you only look at 'certain American party media,' you might think Harris still has a chance; when you switch to Twitter, you will find that it is flooded with messages about Trump winning. Information is neither right nor wrong, but it can be narrow-minded. Therefore, when we assess a project's popularity and reputation solely using Twitter, we should also look at on-chain data, community discussions, and engage with people, etc. Enrich your channels to receive a more diverse range of signals. Escape KOL biases. This year, I was particularly impressed by the discussions around ai16z, which I fortuitously followed from the beginning to now. There are good and bad aspects. For instance, at the beginning, the founder's unfiltered comments made many people worry about their holdings, and KOLs of the stature of Ansem and Him publicly FUDed ai16z. In the debate over eliza/Eliza case sensitivity, different KOLs held very different opinions. Having differing views is normal, and criticizing a project is also normal. However, if all viewpoints become illogical, emotional, and rigid, they carry biases. During this period, if you only looked at those who were consistently bullish on ai16z, you would think the project's issues were trivial, but you would also have to endure the selling pressure during that time. Similarly, during this period, if you only followed those KOLs who continued to FUD ai16z regardless of how it improved, the information you received would always be negative, causing you to miss out on 10x or even 100x returns. KOLs are not right or wrong; each KOL is merely an information echo chamber. Their quality varies, but being individuals, they inevitably carry their own fixed perceptions or even certain biases. When researching a project, do not overlook friends around you who have genuinely conducted in-depth research on a specific project. Beware of conspiracy groups; your inside information is mostly 'money-losing information.' Many friends have shared on Twitter that more than 80% of the 'inside information' they receive results in losses. I am the same; I'm not sharing 'inside information' with malicious intent, but because we are all part of the game. You do not know the authenticity of the information (whether it will pump); you do not know the effectiveness of the information (where it will pump to); you do not know how many others are also aware of this information (is the buy-in point low enough); ... The probability of this information being 'distorted' is too high, leading to this 'inside information' becoming 'money-losing information' by the time it reaches you. Real users: Reject false data prosperity; traffic is important, but do not become addicted to traffic. The industry's traffic has become more deceptive; we need real influence. Whether it is Twitter followers, website traffic, or number of AMAs, fake traffic is increasing, supporting many peripheral 'traffic selling' services. For my own work, I have a deeper understanding. The influence of media is often judged by traffic; many people who do not understand the industry typically assess whether a media outlet is worth collaborating with based on traffic through third-party tools. This has directly led to the phenomenon of 'buying traffic' to attract 'business,' becoming common across all industries. However, 'bought traffic' cannot bring 'real influence'; the 'business' it attracts does not necessarily yield 'good results.' In this cycle: Platforms need to buy traffic to appear influential; project teams require appealing traffic to prove their actions are effective; various platforms compete with each other, gradually increasing the cost of buying traffic; as traffic increases, superficial effects improve, leading the industry into false prosperity, where only wealth genuinely transfers to 'traffic service providers.' I would like to call this phenomenon 'TrafficSick.' Once you are infected, you will fall deeper. How to judge real influence? Try communicating with real people, interacting with different roles in the industry, and asking them their opinions on certain issues, whether they have seen specific content, what their evaluations are, etc. This is also the reason I attended many events last year; only by truly engaging and communicating offline with different friends could I understand how everyone views us, what everyone is discussing now, what the community atmosphere is like, and what kind of content genuinely interests users. Real influence and genuine feedback are what allow us to enter a positive cycle. Do not fear low traffic; consider building a small, emotional niche community first. In the past, when doing advertising, I was deeply influenced by a perspective: there must be some commonalities at the core of every individual, so no matter what you do, as long as it is something that has 'truly moved you' and 'you deeply recognize,' there will definitely be someone on the other side of the world who resonates with you. Just like listening to music, 'niche music' is always a relative concept and will always have a market. Therefore, from a market perspective, the problems being solved are actually very clear: 1- Are you doing something that truly moves and resonates with you? 2- Have you spread this matter widely enough? For Web3, although our market is growing, the good thing is that our traffic is not too dispersed. We can count where users are, which social software they are using, and what your competitors are. Loyal members are certainly attracted by some of your 'extreme concepts, ideas, attitudes,' etc. As long as you find them, they will come to you, start to gather, and then form a community. You do not need a lot of people; because these few dozen individuals may be much more effective than tens of thousands. So, we should not worry about traffic being inadequate, but rather whether what we are doing can truly attract people. Real creation: When AI becomes a universal creation tool for everyone, what kind of content will attract people? This year, aside from the hype around concepts like AI Agents, AI as a tool has greatly enhanced our productivity. However, one point everyone generally comments on is: this thing has a strong AI flavor. Whether you realize it or not, you will gradually discover that you see...

#BTC #ETH