Ten things I learned after receiving more than 100,000 magnesium airdrops

Before the Ethereum Name Service, the sky invested $ENS, although the amount is not the highest in the history of the blockchain, but with the recent ATH of $BTC, $ETH and other big coins, it is easy to understand from Domain Name Service DNS to ENS, and the public attention is unprecedented in history. high.

I have received airdrops of various cryptocurrencies, large and small, and the small ones are not enough to pay the gas fee. The larger ones such as $UNI, $GTC, $DYDX and $ENS are quite impressive. It happens that the four are the foundation of the Ethereum ecosystem. The services are all airdropped in the form of giving back to the early users. The coins allotted to me happen to be worth more than 20,000 magnesium, which adds up to more than 100,000 magnesium. Therefore, I collectively refer to them as the "Big Four Airdrops".

100,000 magnesium is not a small amount. Conventional wisdom would think that "there is such a big clam jumping on the street", but I think this is the unique logic of the blockchain world, and it is also the reason why I am addicted to it. The following is my experience over the past few years to share with you.

1. Don’t ask what the community can do for you, ask what you can do for the community

This particular cliché is borrowed because it is particularly applicable to blockchain projects. One coin, one world, every blockchain project is a community waiting to be developed. It needs the efforts of many people to be able to emerge one day.

Of course, before deciding to invest in a community, you still need to choose carefully, but you should consider the vision, philosophy and team, etc., rather than what benefits you expect from the project from the beginning.

2. OG's gain is a hundred times or even ten thousand times that of the latecomers

OG stands for original gangsters, and when applied to blockchain projects, it refers to the pioneers who choose to believe at the beginning, invest time and resources, and continue to participate until the project is successful. In the traditional world, if you are the OG of Google and Facebook, it is a big deal that they will give you a tee, but the essence of the blockchain is to change the production relationship, and the participants are also stakeholders. The logic of blockchain is not accidental.

Continuing, of course, you can wait for the project to show signs and make preliminary results before deciding whether to participate, but you are not an OG, and your income may be good, just like when you bought $ETH at a price of several hundred magnesium, now There are also more than ten times the return, but compared to the real OG, it will still be a hundred times worse.

3. People shake blessings, HODL

HODL means HOLD, long-term holding, including long-term investment here. It is not enough to put in or invest in a project early in the morning, it also needs to be HODLed. If you knew Bill Gates from a very early age, but in middle school you thought his glasses were a little out of place, it's hard to expect him to thank you after the success of M$.

Although I said that I received an airdrop of 100,000 magnesium, don't forget that it was not worth so much when they gave it to me. For example, $UNI was only a few magnesium in the airdrop. Many people saw that a few thousand magnesium was very good, so they sold it and replaced it. iPhone, they believe that the current iPhone is more than the future Uniswap. When $UNI is as low as two magnesium, they probably think it is right to sell out.

Whether it's tenfold up or tenth down, HODL is a big test of faith.

4. Contribution does not necessarily require writing programs, and investment does not necessarily require money

Some people will say "I am very optimistic, but I have no money", or "I am very willing to support, but I don't understand technology." These are not reasons. As long as you have the heart, you can invest time, which is the rarest resource, more expensive than money. To have no time is to choose to spend your time elsewhere. As long as you are willing to put in the time, even if you don't know the technology, there are always places that can help, such as promotion, introduction, customer service, testing, documentation, and even just using it when the product is not mature.

I often feel guilty when it comes to contributing, and sometimes I'm just willing to use it early in the morning, that's all. For example, ENS, I just registered ckxpress.eth in 2017, took an NFT, and then renewed it for ten years. But having said that, if I have any doubts about blockchain or ENS, will I pay for 10 years at once?

I believe it is also a contribution.

5. This is not a reward for hard work, but it is not something you get for nothing

It is the karma of blockchain.

I am thankful for my luck, but instead of using four services and then getting four big airdrops, I also used hundreds of other services, read hundreds of white papers, and got nothing— If the airdrop counts. With enough time and energy invested, the unlucky ones will meet with luck.

Among the airdrop four, the project that best explains how karma and blockchain change the production relationship is probably Gitcoin. What Gitcoin service did I use to get the $GTC airdrop? Donate quarterly to deserving open source projects.

6. You are not an actuary, you do not need to calculate the CP value for everything

Even if you are really an actuary, you have to know that not everything is required to calculate the input-output ratio. Cultivating interests, finding meaning, engaging in the community, helping others, and sharing experiences are the process of earning happiness. The development of blockchain has this life but not the afterlife. If you don't participate in the wave of the world without a big platform, you will lose more than airdrops.

I took more $UNI airdrops than the users who simply traded because I put $MKR/$ETH into the liquidity pool for people to trade. Don’t think that it is very profitable, but there was no such thing as liquidity mining at that time, but providing liquidity can help the circulation of community assets, and the transaction fees obtained will be lost if there is any impermanent loss. If you go to calculate the CP value, this is definitely not worth doing.

7. Embrace innovation and support change

It is said that "disruptive innovation", however, non-destructive innovation does not exist at all. The same is true of change. Changing the system will affect the vested interests, and the failure of the change will often happen.

The blockchain project is both innovative and transformative. It is very difficult and requires support from various aspects. However, once the project is successful, the production relationship will be improved, and the value will be huge, and the participants are also stakeholders, so the benefits are not surprising.

8. You can ignore but don’t look down on it, you can doubt but don’t deny it

No matter how knowledgeable you are, the world is changing every day, and you don’t understand many things; if you don’t like it, don’t get involved, there’s no need to look down on others. All octopuses know that predicting the failure of a project. Innovation is inherently fatal. Guessing that a project will fail will not make you appear smart, but will only make you show harshness; a16z will not show off which project it guessed correctly failed.

If you are not familiar with the situation, don't deny the team's motivation, let alone blame and ridicule. The immediate success of Uniswap, Gitcoin, dYdX, and ENS may seem like a given, but at first it all seemed like a whimsical, even absurd scam. Innovation is inherently "creating something out of nothing".

Nine, wait for the rabbit, don't cut a boat and ask for a sword

Choose projects and tracks to invest in. Don’t choose those that seem to be about to succeed, or have already succeeded. Otherwise, the upside will be limited, and the opportunity will pass after you integrate into the ecosystem.

Waiting for the rabbit is not a derogatory sense, that is the misunderstanding of the ancients. It's not easy to keep the plant, that is HODL, which is a high test of patience and belief. Besides, standing still does not mean being passive. During the waiting period, you need to plant trees for ten years.

10. Pay it forward

Your success and fortune must be based on the seeds planted by many forerunners, by individual effort alone? You have no electricity without Edison Tesla, and no computer without Turing. Therefore, if you succeed, you should pay it forward, give back to the ecology when you make money, teach people how to fish when you learn a trick, and support the weak when you gain status.

In short, to spread the blessing. Maybe, after a circle of luck, one day it will come back to you. The earth is round, and so is bitcoin.

I am the author of "Blockchain Sociology: Reimagining Money, Media and Democracy " Gao Reconstruction , slash writing/teaching/entrepreneurship, exploring freedom of the press , financial freedom and democratic freedom , published every Friday in #decentralizehk weekly .

These articles are fully open and aimed at popularizing knowledge; if you believe in value, don't punish openness and encourage closure, please pay for a subscription and support me to keep doing it.

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Original link: chungkin Express