I haven't been in crypto seriously nearly as long as some of the OGs I respect. I have been in long enough to learn some things. I first noticed this tendency in myself, then I began to notice it in many, many other investors who shared my investment profile.
The number one reason you're failing and gettin rekt while everyone else is bragging about gains on Telegram: You're not moving with your generation in crypto — you're trying to keep up with folks who have been in the game much longer than you.
Whaddya mean, Alucard?
A Personal Example of Shame and Rektness
At the beginning of my defi journey, a protocol that will remain nameless sucked me in with a huge potential APY yield farm. You know what happened next.
REKT
Why?
- I had no notion of impermanent loss
- I thought "decentralized" meant no whale manipulation
- I didn't know the APY was variable based on participation
- I didn't understand market cycles
- I believed too much in the bigtalk shitheads in the Telegram group
- I believed too much in the bigtalk shitheads in the Discord group
- I believed too much in the bigtalk shitheads on Twitter
The number one thing that killed me — I couldn't understand why the community was so bullish even though the entire farm was dumping. Now that I know a bit more about farming and crypmmunity, here's why:
1. The protocol, though dumpy when I joined, had been chugging along nicely for YEARS. The native coin recently had a 4X, so the OGs benefitted from non-stop farming and capital gains. They'd been in the green for months. They didn't care about profitability, only sustainability, because they had no reason to sell.
2. The tax on selling the shitcoin was huge and distributed to the community. The contract was programmed to eat up short term flybys like me and give the remains to the community.
3. Insiders shared valuable information about the protocol in a private Discord group that could only be unlocked through time in the community.
In short, I was trying to compete in a grown man's game when I was just a baby. I should have been looking for baby projects instead of trying to ball out on established projects.
Crypto Boomers Crying About Deathcoins
If you stick around long enough, you'll hear the word maximalist. This term is associated usually with a particular project — bitcoin maximalist, ethereum maximalist — and it means that person upholds the values of that project above all others.
That's not really what it means. What maximalism really means is that some dumbass is holding a bag from 2017 that still isn't back into profit yet. They haven't had the experience of taking profits from a successful investment and expanding their reach further into the crypto ecosystem. No, they are sitting in the red throwing good time after bad money.
It may also mean that a certain protocol has put an individual in a new life space through enormous gains. If my family's out of poverty because of 2017 bitcoin, I have a huge incentive to be a bitcoin maximalist. If I've seen huge gains in 2018-2019 ETH defi, I might start to believe that ETH owns defi and yell about it everywhere.
The 2017 landscape looks nothing like the 2020 landscape in crypto. Litecoin and XRP have proven to be derivative garbage. IOST is a ghost chain. All of those coins made some people HUGE bank a few years ago.
Follow projects that started before you did — without investing in them. Save your money for the projects you can "grow up with." When your crypto generation matures, you'll know who the real devs are and have the value to put behind them. Don't worry too much about crypto boomer coins (deathcoins) — they've already had their 1000X pump. The big gains on those projects have already been taken.
Guaranteeing Your Cryptory (Crypto Victory)
The most important thing to do in crypto is find out who you are before you go chasing every damn coin that pumps on Coingecko or Dextools. I wrote about it. Twice actually. Check it out and come back.
You back?
Knowing who you are keeps you from needing to chase every pump. If you can't or don't care to understand what an oracle is, then you've no business investing in Chainlink or Band. But if you know you love Pokemon-type battle games, you'll more than make up for those "missed" investments playing Axie Infinity or Decentraland!
Most importantly, you won't feel as though you need to invest in other people's wins to keep up with them. You don't know the dues they've paid. They may have yield farmed a protocol for months waiting for the shitcoin in the pool to return to profitability. I've seen people resell Axia for 20X gains, but they held those suckers for 2. Long. Years. Don't think you're just going to watch a tutorial and mimic those kinds of gains.
Move with your generation.
Find the projects that are just getting off the ground at the same time you are getting in on crypto. Research the new devs on LinkedIn. Read their whitepapers. Learn to discern big ballers from bullshitters on Telegram and Discord and build a group of trusted advisors from your class.
Listen to a crypto boomer, you'll be losing yourself in ETH defi fees instead of digging into data selling protocols and NFT insurance on newer, less expensive blockchains. Be the first movers on a newer chain. That's how you make your 1000X.
Protip: There's an entire generation of cryptoheads who put themselves in a new financial space with YFI. The huge takeaway — YFI was initially a FREE AIRDROP. Don't just look for lowcap gems, look for airdrop gems as well. Follow YOUR generation FTW.
