This is the origin of the 'Monetized Metaverse'.
Traditional finance (tardfi) has decades of experience and a well-established regulatory system. Although these 'investor protection' mechanisms are often mocked, they do effectively reduce risks. In contrast, the cryptocurrency space is like the Wild West, a relatively niche arena where one learns the rules of traditional finance through painful lessons. In such an environment, competition is uneven, and some people understand the 'hidden rules' better than others.
The purpose of this guide is to share these lessons learned from experience. Unfortunately, those who need this advice the most might be watching funny videos on YouTube or following lilmoonlambo instead of reading my article here (those who write guides always think this way). However, I hope you, as an insightful reader, can find some helpful content within.
I liken crypto to a large multiplayer online game (MMO) because it really has many similarities: health points, levels, online friends, player versus player (PvP), player versus environment (PvE), a bustling town square, and an economy—except here, the 'gold coins' are worth more than those in (World of Warcraft). This is the origin of the 'Monetized Metaverse'.
The following content is sorted by the potential impact on your investment results (if you haven't implemented or understood it yet).
Teamwork: Don't be a lone wolf.
Many people entering the crypto world are natural contrarians or prefer to go solo. After all, ignoring the advice of family and friends (if they know) requires a lot of courage. Moreover, once they taste a bit of success, it is even easier to feel like they are 'walking alone'. 'I just need to listen to the market!'—typical lone wolves say.
But I want to tell you, give up this 'lone wolf mentality'! The market is lagging; it will only tell you where you went wrong after you make a mistake, and the speed of change in the crypto industry is so fast that you won't have time to learn slowly.
You need to find a group of excellent teammates to strive together. These teammates should be ethical, hardworking, and like-minded 'workers'. The most important quality is resilience—make friends with those who are frustrated because of mistakes and take prompt action, and stay away from those who only 'self-soothe'. A high-trust chat group covers a broader range than you going it alone and can quickly tell you where you are right or wrong. The most helpful feedback is often blunt and can even be harsh—but even coldness is a form of feedback.
If you can't find a team, reflect on your 'value proposition'. Generally speaking, unless you meet friends offline, invitations to join a team are usually based on 'what value you can bring' and 'whether you fit in'. The best teams are made up of strong individuals—improve your skills and reputation until you can join the team you want on equal terms, rather than joining as a 'charity case'.
Here are some types of 'great teammates' I have around me:
Mentor: Someone who provides you with valuable experience early on, just like I am writing this guide now.
Partner: In critical moments, investing 10 hours a day together, chatting 2000 messages, and making plans.
Signal Caller: A discerning partner who helps you distinguish which ideas are reliable and which are just 'brainstorming'.
Explorer: A bolder partner responsible for discovering new opportunities for everyone to sift through.
Guide: A technical wizard who solves various technical challenges.
Expert: An advisor who provides specialized advice in specific situations.
Many people think that so-called 'secret organizations' are some mysterious conspiracy groups, but in reality, they are often just chat groups formed by friends. They grow together and now have a certain influence.
The Importance of a 'Home Base'
Not all group chats are the same. There is a special group chat called 'home base'; it is the first place you log into every day, the first place you reply to messages, and most importantly, the first place to share information.
When deciding whether to invite someone to join your high-trust group chat (to enhance team efficiency), there is a counterintuitive suggestion: try to avoid inviting those with high-profile accounts, as they often already have their own 'home base'. Instead, those who are still full of energy and have no fixed teams—'newcomers'—are the ones worth considering.
Risk of Complacency
Every group chat has its lifecycle.
In prosperous times, most people in the group chat are filled with passion and desire. This momentum often comes from the new smart individuals who have not yet succeeded but seem to have a bright future.
However, over time, group chats inevitably become complacent. Members gradually reach higher levels, at which point the 'game' pace becomes slower and more organized. Daily discussions decrease, and topics begin to shift towards life, politics, and other areas.
If you want to always be at the forefront of the industry, make friends with those emerging and promising individuals, and join group chats that are still in a 'thirsty' state. Think about the passion and desire you had when you first entered the industry and immerse yourself in that atmosphere again.
Choose a profession, find your strengths.
To succeed in this field long-term, you must cultivate a real advantage. Simply buying tokens that rise in a bull market is not an advantage—being able to identify the signals of a bull market is key. Joining a group chat that teaches you step by step may benefit you in the short term, but such advantages often fade quickly. The real advantage lies in being able to continuously and stably make money in a specific field.
Different strategies suit different personalities. If you are a patient and risk-averse player, you should not enter the high-risk arena of 'pump.fun'; similarly, if you are an inherently adventurous person, it is difficult to persist in liquidity mining because you may soon be distracted by other things.
Here are some successful skill classifications based on different risk preferences.
DPS - Trader
This type of player focuses on directional trading, seeking high-risk, high-reward opportunities. Successful stories often overshadow the losses of most people. To become a DPS main, you need high-risk tolerance, excellent risk management skills, strong psychological resilience, and the ability to maintain fighting spirit in the face of failure.
Trench Warrior
Junk coin traders are a group with a significant ability gap among all professions—the worst (even average) performers are very poor, while the top performers are excellent. Players like req and nbs can fully utilize on-chain information resources. If you consider yourself a 'junk coin trader' but have not mastered your on-chain analysis tools, you still have a lot of room for improvement. In my opinion, that is the only real alpha in this field.
Although trading in junk coins is a popular entry choice due to low capital thresholds and high potential returns, this style is hard to scale to higher levels. The problem is liquidity—newly issued coins have poor liquidity, and attempting to trade with larger capital can lead to increased slippage. In fact, buying too many coins can even cause the price to collapse, as you will have to bear greater distribution pressure. Junk coin trading also cannot scale laterally by increasing trading volume or frequency because the failure rate is simply too high.
Those who successfully stand out from the junk coin market are advised not to look back easily unless it's a special situation or you have a real advantage in it.
Hunter of Quality New Things
The strategy of 'hunting quality new things' is centered on finding a new token with strong fundamental logic, entering early, and enjoying the appreciation process that follows. Unlike those whose holding periods are measured in days or even hours, 'trench warriors' rely on fundamental logic and usually need weeks to months to see results. Ideally, the market quickly recognizes this logic. This is also my favorite style because it does not rely on 'luck' and is more repeatable. The ideal operating range is: buy when the token's market cap is between $50 million and $100 million, and exit when it is around $1 billion. This strategy can easily scale to larger investment sizes.
Why choose new things?
The core logic here is 'the market has not yet properly priced this thing; it should be worth more'. New things are easier to accomplish compared to old ones, mainly for two reasons:
Time factor: The market's pricing of new things is relatively short-lived, thus not fully reflecting their value.
Capital flow: There are fewer existing holders of new things, while potential buyers are more numerous, creating greater space for capital inflow.
Of course, this does not mean it must be a completely new token. Some old tokens, if they have a clear transformation direction, may also become opportunities, although they may struggle a bit due to existing supply resistance.
How to find quality new things? The answer is 'you'll know when you see it'. But if you don't know where to start, you can refer to the following points:
Is it innovative enough?
This is the most important criterion. First movers often gain momentum beyond expectations, and their risk/reward ratios are very high. A completely new trend can often spark new discussions about the industry, and all attention will eventually return to the original thing.
Is there a flywheel effect?
The flywheel effect refers to a self-reinforcing cycle. For example, junk coins (Shitcoin) inherently have a flywheel effect—as prices rise, holders become wealthier, more excited, and tell more friends, creating a positive feedback loop. Other flywheel effects may be more complex, such as bonding curves, which can effectively start project activity through deterministic early participation and guaranteed returns.
Is there an entry barrier?
Onboarding friction is an important part of validating investment logic. If there is absolutely no entry barrier, you need to ask yourself: Why am I so lucky to buy in at a low price? Perhaps the current price is already reasonable. At the same time, the existence of an entry barrier also suggests that there may be opportunities to lower the barrier in the future. For example, Rollbit's migration from Solana to Ethereum, the expansion of the ultra-liquid spot ecosystem, and even the launch of Bitcoin ETFs are typical cases of lowering entry barriers. The reduction of barriers often attracts more capital into the market, and those who invested effort early on typically benefit from this.
Meme Priest
If 'gem hunters' rely on fundamentals as support, then Meme Priests completely abandon these boring aspects. Meme Priests are NFT traders in this cycle who intuitively catch market sentiment to find Alpha. Just like NFT investment, 'lying flat' after buying is usually the best strategy—until this strategy no longer works.
However, this path requires tremendous faith. You must be able to withstand the pressure of market pullbacks and also accept the negative emotions that may come with these pullbacks. The best meme priests can even change the odds of success through their actions. For example, baproll and spx6900, or dbl and fartcoin, are typical cases.
From another perspective, Bitcoin can also be seen as a massive Meme on a larger scale. Reflecting on my investment experience, I found that if I 'lie flat' and do nothing after buying a Meme, my returns often exceed those from 'active investing'. I wonder if this strategy applies to you as well? Perhaps this is a question worth pondering.
Leverage Wizard
Among all trading categories, leveraged traders have the highest risk of failure. Their behavior sometimes resembles that of 'problem gamblers'. In my experience, most leveraged traders' issues stem from using excessive leverage, holding losing positions for too long, and trading frequently. I once joked, 'There are no successful leveraged traders in this world, only those who have not yet been liquidated.'
Leveraged trading seems simple, and every year there are a few opportunities that make you feel it's 'easy'. For example, the approval of Bitcoin ETFs or certain major events. However, at other times, leveraged trading resembles a brutal PvP battlefield. Even when profitable, the returns from leveraged trading often pale in comparison to simple asymmetric spot investment opportunities.
If you are considering choosing this category, I would strongly advise you to give it up.
Farmers - Tank shields.
Tank-type players are almost indestructible (unless faced with smart contract risks). Their losses are minimal, but their upside is also relatively fixed. Tank-type gameplay is particularly suitable for those who are very patient, risk-averse, or have limited time.
Stablecoin Staking Players
By providing liquidity for users or projects, they can earn steady returns. Currently, there are mainly a few sources of income:
Funding Rate Trading
When market demand is strong (such as Bitcoin reaching new all-time highs), the demand for margin trading will be very high, driving up funding rates (annualized rates paid by longs to shorts). For major coins (like Bitcoin and Ethereum), this rate can sometimes exceed 20% and permeates the on-chain stablecoin market.
RWA Returns
Government bonds are currently the most common and liquid RWAs successfully introduced to the crypto space. In contrast, returns from real estate and other forms of real-world asset returns, due to poor liquidity and high risks, are not recommended.
Token Incentive Returns
Issuing token rewards to users providing funds is a significant innovation in the DeFi space. Although incentive mechanisms are now more complex, there are still opportunities for unexpected surprises. This is a true 'player versus environment' (PvE) model, as project parties are willing to exchange their printed tokens for liquidity.
Moreover, 'market-making liquidity providers' are an emerging role in this cycle, with high and stable returns. For example, GMX liquidity pools and projects like Jupiter and Hyperliquid are all good choices.
Sybil/Wash Strategy
For those deeply involved in crypto projects, this strategy currently offers the best risk/reward ratio, as it usually requires only a small amount of capital. The core idea is to participate in a new protocol (whether as a user or contributing trading volume), as long as the expected rewards exceed the costs incurred. However, this approach is gradually losing its effectiveness, as more and more projects have realized that these 'farmers' are extractive and have begun to adopt linearly designed reward mechanisms to curb this behavior.
The essence of this approach lies in an implicit consensus—projects need certain key metrics (such as user count, total locked value TVL, and trading volume) to enhance valuation and attract new users. Unlike users who provide actual liquidity support, those using Sybil/Wash (i.e., users who fake identities or engage in fake trading) only create a false prosperity. Even so, many projects are willing to pay with their issued tokens just to showcase a pretty data dashboard on Dune Analytics.
I have heard that the most radical operations are often programmatic and have been in a battle of wits with detection mechanisms. For example, when I heard that there was an automated operating system with 12,000 bots in a certain project, I decided to never touch zkSync again.
If you want to actually try this method, a feasible approach is: when you discover a promising new project, you can interact with it using several accounts you normally use.
Support players - Other categories.
These styles are neither trading nor staking mining, but they are unique enough to be classified as a separate category.
Insider
There are many types of insiders; some are helpful for project development, while others may have malicious intent. Regardless, being an insider is a privilege, and compared to ordinary investors, their risks are much lower.
So, what is the difference between investing in insiders and seed round insiders? Typically, it is the difference in project quality—previously, venture capital could signal project quality, but this standard is changing.
In fact, most project founders are more willing to accept direct messages (DMs) than you might think, especially in the early stages of a project. For example, the pre-sale strategy of NBS: participate at the end of the pre-sale while DMing the developers, which also reflects an insider strategy.
Builder
If you are a builder, my only advice is: stop reading this article and go back to building! Perhaps this article can help you better understand user personas, but nothing is more important than continuously iterating and finding product-market fit (PMF). Think about the best builders you know—would they be reading this content?
Onchain Rogue
There are many under-explored opportunities in the blockchain space; those with technical skills, curiosity, and energy can delve into them and profit. For example, sniping, sandwich attacks, randomness exploits, etc., these edge cases await the discerning to discover and leverage.
Leveling Guide
In the process of attempting to level up, you need to clarify whether you are in 'Speed Run mode' or 'Hardcore mode'.
Speed Run: This mode allows for a reset after failure. It is similar to 'Hypergambling' and is suitable for those with other income sources or students with high income potential in the future. Because of less fear of failure, the Speed Run mode can take on more risks.
Hardcore Run: This mode has a low tolerance for failure. For example, if your funds are life savings or you live in economically disadvantaged areas and even need to support family members, then you cannot bear the risk of losing all your funds, which falls into hardcore mode.
Assets at four digits and below
If you already have a job or are in school, you can skip to the next section.
At this stage, you should spend more time earning fiat—minimum wage work equates to a 150% annualized return (APR). And I believe you, dear reader, can do more.
In fact, for a portfolio of this scale, you cannot achieve sufficient returns to justify spending a lot of time on it. The only exception is Sybil farming for airdrops, but this doesn't require full-time involvement. Opportunities for 10x returns are rare and should be pursued at higher asset stages.
If you live in an area with scarce job opportunities, consider joining a protocol as a community manager or another role they need. The simplest way is to become part of the community as the protocol develops, so when they need to hire, you are already a core member of the community.
Five-digit hell - Focus on increasing fiat income.
Welcome to the trench phase. At this stage, every dollar is as precious as ammunition on the battlefield—they are prepared to help you find that 10x return opportunity.
Many try to become 'trench warriors' without truly mastering the necessary skills or riskily attempt to become 'leverage guides'. These individuals often get stuck in five-digit hell until the bull market pulls them out—but soon they will fall back again.
However, I find that those who hold MemeCoins for a long time or are good at discovering 'good new things' often succeed in breaking through. Their strategy is simple: firmly buy and hold spot assets.
Regardless of whether you choose hardcore mode, Sybil farming for airdrops is a low-cost way to participate. Just one large, nonlinear airdrop opportunity is enough to graduate from this phase.
Six-digit hell - Looking for 10x returns.
Seize the best point. When your capital reaches a certain scale, you can easily catch a 10x return opportunity without worrying too much about capital size or slippage issues. In the 'New Opportunity Hunter' section, it is mentioned that ideal investment opportunities typically grow from a market cap of $50 million or $100 million to $1 billion.
Personally, I have escaped the six-digit hell four times and have been fortunate never to fall back. Each time, the strategy was the same:
Keep a close eye on new opportunities: Always watch for potential new projects or trends in the market.
Test hypotheses with small amounts: First invest a small amount of capital to test whether your investment hypothesis holds.
Concentrated and steadfast holding: After confirming your hypothesis, invest most of your capital and patiently wait for the strategy to be validated.
Take profits when the market is abuzz: When you find everyone in the market is talking about this project, it is a good time to exit with profits.
Looking back at each successful experience, there is a common point: I bet on exchange tokens. After all, speculation has always been the most lethal product-market fit in the cryptocurrency market.
Seven-digit hell - Looking for a few 2-3x returns.
When capital scales reach seven digits, seeking some 2-3x opportunities is key to getting out of trouble. The overall strategy is similar to that of the six-digit phase, just requiring more patience and repeated actions. However, as the capital scale increases, the difficulty of operations also rises, especially in maintaining flexibility amid market volatility.
At this time, the biggest challenge is how to allocate funds. You may find that certain projects have insufficient liquidity to support the investment scale you desire. This forces you to diversify your investments. In the six-figure phase, you can concentrate all your funds on the best ideas; but in the seven-figure phase, this approach often becomes unrealistic.
When there are no sufficiently attractive new opportunities in the market, temporarily parking funds in stablecoin liquidity mining (Stable Farms) is a good choice. This approach provides stable returns while allowing you time to wait for better investment opportunities. Patience is particularly important at this stage.
Additionally, parking capital in stablecoin farming between different 'good new things' has become more attractive. At this stage, patience is particularly important.
Eight digits and above
At this stage, what more is there to say? The only thing those who reach this level need to remember is: 'Don't mess it up.'
Don't stand in the fire pit.
Avoid the following common mistakes.
Avoid trading when emotions are out of control.
Learn to recognize your emotional changes. When you feel yourself starting to lose control, decisively sell your holdings and temporarily leave the market. Chasing losses never yields good results; calming down is the wise choice.
Avoid making arbitrary bets after big wins.
After making a big profit, it is easy to suffer foolish losses due to overconfidence. I call this situation 'euphoria trades'. Regardless of how victorious you have just been, always maintain rigor in the trading process and avoid being swayed by emotions.
Avoid circular cashing out.
When trading, always ask yourself a question: 'Who else will buy?' The essence of the market is the flow of capital, not stagnation. Sometimes, some assets may seem safe simply because everyone is holding them, but that does not mean they are truly risk-free.
Forget about floating profits and losses and historical highs.
Dwelling on past mistakes will only waste your energy. Obsessing over these things can cloud your thinking and affect your next decision. Let go of the past and focus on future opportunities.
'Insider information often leads to the worst losses' -cl207
When you hear so-called 'insider information', carefully assess your position in the information chain. The further you are from the source of information, the more likely you are to become a 'liquidity provider' for those who need to exit.
Don't increase your position when you're at a loss.
'Losers only double down on losing investments' is a common mistake in the market. If the market has clearly told you that your judgment is wrong, then do not continue to increase your position without sufficient reason.
Old coins are not good, new coins are more appealing.
New projects often have greater growth potential, while old projects may have lost their appeal. You can refer to my previous detailed analysis regarding capital flow on this.
Qualities of the best players in games - David Sirlin.
David Sirlin is a champion of competitive fighting games who wrote a book called (Playing to Win) sharing his strategies and insights. For anyone who has participated in high-level competitions, this content may not be unfamiliar. But the qualities he summarizes that successful players need are equally applicable to investors in the crypto space. These qualities include:
Deep understanding of the market: Understanding historical trends and precedents helps you predict future market changes.
Love for the market: You must love this 'game' enough to invest sufficient time and energy to achieve victory.
Psychological resilience: This market will make you experience countless collapses, but you need to persist.
The right mindset: When faced with losses or misfortunes, do you choose to face them calmly or complain angrily?
Technical ability: Do you possess unique skills or advantages?
Adaptability: Can you flexibly apply your strengths to new environments or rules?
Yomi (Prediction Ability): Can you accurately predict the behavior of other market participants?
Assessment Ability: Can you relatively judge the value and potential of things?