Today the fear and greed index is at 23, which indicates extreme fear. BTC is at 64507, shorts have liquidated $116.6M in the last 24 hours, while longs have only reached $49.9M. On the surface, it looks like the shorts are getting schooled, but that’s not what I want to discuss.
I want to ask a personal question.
Back in 2014, when I first entered the scene, I did something really dumb—I forked a chain with two friends, something like a doge-style meme chain. At the time, I thought I was a genius. On day one, we held onto 40% of the circulating supply, no locks, no vesting, no cliffs, nothing at all. TGE was 100% unlocked. Guess what? The community figured it out in three days and roasted us on Bitcointalk for two months. That chain went to zero in two weeks.
That was when I first understood something: retail investor awareness is more valuable than team awareness. You might think retail doesn’t understand tokenomics, but they actually see it clearer than you do; they just don’t say anything.
Looking back now, how many projects in 2024 are doing the exact same thing? Just rebranded—3-month cliff, 15% TGE unlock, the rest linear over 18 months. It looks appealing, but if you check the deployer address on-chain, the team’s wallet sold half through OTC market makers in the first month.
BTC ETFs have seen a net outflow of $6.4B over the last 30 days, the fear and greed index is on the floor, OI is at $46.93B but the weighted fee rate is only +0.0018%—this shows that big money is on the sidelines, not placing bets. In this environment, it’s even tougher for project teams because after TGE, there’s no liquidity to back them up, and the “maintain bid depth” in market maker agreements can’t be executed.
So I genuinely want to ask you: for those still participating in IDOs / launchpads, do you check the vesting schedule before jumping in, or do you just follow what KOLs say? I’m not mocking; I really want to know—because I run a launchpad, and for the recent projects I've launched, the retail participation rate has dropped by nearly half, but the quality of those who remain has noticeably increased, with questions becoming more sophisticated. Is this market education finally kicking in, or did dumb money just leave first while smart money hasn’t arrived yet?
I want to ask a personal question.
Back in 2014, when I first entered the scene, I did something really dumb—I forked a chain with two friends, something like a doge-style meme chain. At the time, I thought I was a genius. On day one, we held onto 40% of the circulating supply, no locks, no vesting, no cliffs, nothing at all. TGE was 100% unlocked. Guess what? The community figured it out in three days and roasted us on Bitcointalk for two months. That chain went to zero in two weeks.
That was when I first understood something: retail investor awareness is more valuable than team awareness. You might think retail doesn’t understand tokenomics, but they actually see it clearer than you do; they just don’t say anything.
Looking back now, how many projects in 2024 are doing the exact same thing? Just rebranded—3-month cliff, 15% TGE unlock, the rest linear over 18 months. It looks appealing, but if you check the deployer address on-chain, the team’s wallet sold half through OTC market makers in the first month.
BTC ETFs have seen a net outflow of $6.4B over the last 30 days, the fear and greed index is on the floor, OI is at $46.93B but the weighted fee rate is only +0.0018%—this shows that big money is on the sidelines, not placing bets. In this environment, it’s even tougher for project teams because after TGE, there’s no liquidity to back them up, and the “maintain bid depth” in market maker agreements can’t be executed.
So I genuinely want to ask you: for those still participating in IDOs / launchpads, do you check the vesting schedule before jumping in, or do you just follow what KOLs say? I’m not mocking; I really want to know—because I run a launchpad, and for the recent projects I've launched, the retail participation rate has dropped by nearly half, but the quality of those who remain has noticeably increased, with questions becoming more sophisticated. Is this market education finally kicking in, or did dumb money just leave first while smart money hasn’t arrived yet?