My starting point in the industry was also airdrops, but the airdrop model has changed quite a bit now. As a crypto trainee with a verifiable track record, I'll share what should be done next. This article is mainly aimed at providing some core ideas for players with small capital.

"Shear the sheep in a bear market, trade coins in a bull market; the large MC memecoin doesn't get sheared, the big hair doesn't get sheared"

The most core thing is: lower expectations.

Whether it's the secondary market, the primary market, or farming-like airdrops, one should recognize that the crypto industry has entered a bear market in terms of valuation. I've said many times before "return to common sense". In a sluggish market, the high emotional premium will be deflated for a value reversion. If you can lower your expectations and not be too greedy, that will be the foundation to persevere in the bear market.

Before shearing the sheep, the most important thing to understand is: what is the essence of shearing the sheep?

• Shearing the sheep is a primary-and-a-half market participation channel, with certain similarities to primary investment;
• Airdrops in the current version are a marketing tool used by projects to acquire customers and boost data;
• Shearing the sheep is not a guaranteed return activity, it's also a form of investment, and the project may not even promise a return.

Based on the above three points, you'll find one thing - the majority of the primary investment group, the VCs, actually don't make money, and the rule of primary investment is to invest in a bear market and harvest in a bull market.

In the history of airdrops in recent years, all the simple big hair airdrops have mostly come out of bear markets, such as APT and ARB, which emerged when the secondary market was not doing so well. The retail investors' capital cost and time cost were not as high, especially for Aptos, which was even at the A8 level of big hair airdrop.

However, the second half of last year was basically a bull market. Doing primary investment in a bull market, the possibility of getting sheared is inevitably high. If you understand that the essence of shearing the sheep is an uncontracted primary investment, you'll find that getting sheared is probably just the norm.

Let's review the timeline of Nillion. This project raised funds in Q3 last year and launched its main retail participation activity, right in the two most active quarters of the secondary market last year. And now, at the time of TGE, it's the worst time for the secondary environment... Essentially, this is a problem of timing.

So, what should we do now?

Watch more, do less

Even in a bear market, there are often unexpected opportunities, like the recent $COCORO, which can be considered a large MC memecoin. With a slower pace, there are still opportunities to make money, it's just a matter of how to judge the level of the narrative.

On the basis of watching more and doing less, don't be too greedy. Being able to earn a few tens of thousands of dollars is already great.

You can still do some farming, just don't expand and increase capital investment.

If necessary, you can do more daily farming jobs. If you can lower your expectations, there are still quite a few easy daily jobs in crypto, such as the Binance wallet IDO tasks that pay a few hundred dollars per task, the OKX Cryptopedia activities, the Bybit Solayer & Launchpool activities, which are basically confirmed airdrops, it's just that people usually don't value these small amounts, and that's an expectation issue.

And when farming, think more and review more, which can also improve your industry knowledge, rather than just doing it like ringing a bell. For example, how to improve your efficiency? The process of programmatically collecting information? How to organize and plan the project and knowledge base? These are all ways to optimize.

Self-improvement

If you can read, go read some books, especially to improve your learning ability. Learning languages, improving your education, can all have very practical benefits.

Exercise, to create a good physical foundation for the bull market.

Believe in the large MC memecoin not getting sheared, the big hair not getting sheared. Try to find places that still have dividends, rather than just following what others are doing.