I don't feel too much of an impact, I rarely pvp, I've diamond-handed a few coins, the returns are still good, I've gotten into the bottom of scihub, rif, uro, etc., all of which have chat records in the tg group to prove it, and I've also taken group members to eat 50x and 100x.
Dream of becoming a scientist
The earnings are still good, I haven't become rich yet, but I've made some money from mining, the overall 2024 is still profitable, but not as fun as before, I'm fighting harder. PENGU's wave gave the brothers a little meal ticket, a small profit. As I keep grinding, my mentality is starting to collapse, it feels like I'm moving bricks on a construction site every day.
I'm still in the tuition-paying stage on SOL, although I grind PVP every day, I still don't have a stable money-making strategy, I still need to work hard to refine it, it's just a matter of time before I start making money. Grinding is really tiring, I spend more time researching Meme and participating in new projects, after all, Meme could be a lifetime's salary in five minutes, but I still need to learn more and think more~
Crypto dog
Our team has always been walking on two feet, that is, the Meme+Airdrop model. Since the rune wave, we have built a on-chain monitoring and automatic order placement system, since we are not the type of "calling people to carry the sedan chair" PVP accounts, we rarely say how much we have earned from meme on social media accounts, ensuring a balance between profit and loss and still making a profit.
What are the expectations for 2025? Where will the opportunities arise?
Melon the Sheep
I think there will be considerable profit space for grinding in 2025, but the opportunities are few and only a few can grab them, such as the recent yap that KOLs are grinding, the retail can only be the bag holder. Or other similar plume also made people rich, but they are all scripts to brush hundreds/thousands, only the appearance of something like move can say that the retail has a chance to drink the soup, and it still needs to be very diligent + self-disciplined I feel to be able to do it. And now it feels like the bull market is about to end, the opportunities will be even fewer. I don't know where the opportunities will appear, my predictions are usually not accurate, but I know the opportunities are unlikely to appear in staking, staking is more suitable for the financial mindset.
Big Gambler
In 2025, grinding will still have considerable profits, there are many public chain projects and new Perps protocols emerging, and the old public chains are also undergoing 2.0 reconstruction (Sonic's predecessor Fantom), and they are also carrying out integral airdrop activities, and the Sonic DeFi ecosystem is very strong, under the support of AC, I am very optimistic about Sonic this year.
Watermelon
I believe 2025 will be better, because grinding is an industry to VC, as long as VC exists, there will be a need for data brushing, and there will also be a need to distribute chips (issue tokens). Opportunities will appear on Layer 1, testnet and other cost-controllable projects. Because Layer 1 will issue tokens as soon as it goes online, while Layer 2 may not, and there are already a lot of addresses on Layer 2, it will be difficult to have a big haul. The cost of all-star projects is especially high, and they will inevitably face the problem of being difficult to break through (one interaction costs tens or hundreds of U, it is generally not advisable to invest tens of thousands of U into projects with uncertain prospects).
Ice Cream Warrior
I think there will be, grinding and zero grinding have been the best way for small capital retail to participate so far, because I really dislike staking, I think the opportunities are still on the public chain, looking forward to the upcoming Monad testnet.
Dream of becoming a scientist
Yes, but the threshold is getting higher and higher, it's not easy for the retail. The era of simply grinding a few times and making a lot of money is over, now the project parties are getting more and more sophisticated, the witches are more strict than my homeroom teacher. However, I think in 2025 you can still make money: "strategic grinding", not just multi-account, but researching interactions, on-chain identity, playing the role of a "quality user". Anyway, the wool is still there, it's just getting harder and harder to shear.
Crypto dog
Before answering this question, let's look at a set of authoritative data:
(1) The crypto developer research report released by Electric Capital shows that the number of new developers contributing code to the crypto community is on an upward trend. During the 2017-2018 bull market, over 40,000 new developers joined the community or contributed code to projects; during 2021-2022, a total of over 100,000 developers have entered the community.
(2) Statista data shows that in 2023, global blockchain solution spending is expected to grow to $15.9 billion, fueling huge demand for Web3 developers. Taking the US as an example, software development jobs are expected to grow 22% by 2030, with a 400% increase in demand for Web3 developers.
(3) According to Hired data, the average salary for developers is between $150,000 and $175,000, 20-30% higher than traditional software developers, putting Web3 developers on par with the top tier of AI developers.
These are the original words from a report, all of which can be found by searching.
Whether it's the demand reflected in the labor market, or the fair competition between excellent independent developers and tech giants on the same starting line. It can be predicted that there will be endless new concepts in the future, and the birth of every revolutionary concept has the potential to create a huge wealth effect.
With so many DApps coming out, they need a massive user base. Ethereum users are only about 10 million, accounting for 0.2% of the total internet users, even if TON converts 1% of Telegram users, Web3 is still a niche.
In the context of a limited user market, the increase in the number of DApps means that the user conversion cost of the project parties is rising sharply. In Web2, the cost of converting an APP user is around 100 RMB, while in Web3 the acquisition cost does not need to be paid to the intermediary platform, but directly to the user in the form of tokens. This is also why almost all Web3 projects will reserve a large portion of the token quota for the community after 2021, with the aim of better cold-starting the project. It can be said that the development of Web3 cannot be separated from the support of the community, and the project party's attitude towards the community determines the distribution of the token, and most projects will adopt community incentive methods to cold-start in the future.
If there are opportunities in 2025, will retail still have participation opportunities and value? Or will it only be professional players/studios that can profit through stable anti-witch technology/programmatic, automated means?
Melon the Sheep
There will be opportunities and value, but the difficulty will be very high. Grinding on arb op strk feels like it's come to an end, these types of grinding have basically been scripted. Now is the era of refined grinding, you have to find your own advantages to grind, such as being good at writing scripts, good at digging up projects, strong execution, etc. Of course, if you just want to make a little money, the difficulty shouldn't be too high, but if you want to make a lot, you'll have to figure out how to do it.
Big Gambler
In the current grinding environment, I personally think it will be more focused on refinement, mass grinding is costly, and once you get witched, the losses are devastating. Refined grinding not only prevents witches, but also far exceeds low-protection accounts in airdrop weight.
Watermelon
Anti-witch and automation technology are essential, and you also need basic tools like fingerprint browsers (e.g. Ads), project parties often use clustering algorithms to detect witches (see "Recap: Why I was Witched 100W LXP by Linea"). An important experience is to suggest mixing manual operations into the automated interactions, and also pay attention to the multi-chain interaction of addresses, an address with mainnet interaction records will be much better than other addresses.
Ice Cream Warrior
Retail must participate, as for professional players, not to mention, the professionalism of studios is actually uneven, if the retail wants to get a share, they must put in more effort, do more, put the eggs in many baskets, they will eventually catch an opportunity, participating in multiple projects at once is already much higher in returns than ordinary work.
Dreaming to become a scientist
Retail investors still have a chance, but they need to get smarter and can't just keep blindly buying. Don't think about trying to get 100 accounts to fight the witch's defense, you'd better study the project logic and become a "quality account". Now the studios have hundreds or even thousands of accounts per person, and ordinary people can't compete with them. But studios often pursue quantity, with general quality, while retail investors can actually play fine-tuning, such as:
- Use a clean wallet, combined with real social media accounts, to increase account weight;
- Lay in wait for some potential projects in advance, you don't necessarily have to fight the studios for the hottest spots;
- Participate in high-quality DeFi, NFT ecosystems, not just interact, but also do some real gameplay, the future returns will be greater.
Crypto dog
Airdrops still have profit potential, but different groups need to develop different strategies. I will divide the airdrop groups into the following levels:
(One) Have capital, no time, no technology
By "have capital" I don't mean users with hundreds of thousands or millions of RMB, but users who have this amount of capital but no time, they can just participate in DeFi or exchange Launchpool activities, and the 10-35% annualized returns for those who know how to operate are still there.
By "have capital" I mean people who can put up 100,000 RMB or less, but have a stable job, if they want to grab airdrops after work, they can participate in "trading airdrops", such as DEX volume farming, if it's a derivatives project, they can use two accounts or two platforms to hedge, they can achieve low loss, such as blue, and previously like Uniswap, Jupiter, dYdX, 1INCH...
(Two) Have a lot of time, not much assets, no technology
For example, the disposable capital is 10,000 RMB, this is the common capital amount for many users to enter the circle, but for cryptocurrencies it is very little, only about 1,500 USDT, if you want to grab airdrops, with multiple accounts, you can only play one round, and after one round the gas fee will be completely consumed.
So the first stage relies on execution, here I will classify test network airdrops and grabbing game NFTs as the "zero-cost wealth accumulation stage". You need to grab a large number of test networks, Odyssey, zero-cost games and NFT new releases, to get the snowball rolling, I have written many tutorials on this, you can go and take a look.
Can you share the meme projects you plan to participate in or are currently participating in for 2025
- Meme Eos: Sahara, Monad, sxt (@SpaceandTimeDB)
- Big Gambler: Eclipse Cattle Farming (@EclipseFND), Variational On-Chain Contract (@variational_io), Meteora LP, Polymarket Prediction
- Watermelon: Monad, Kraken's Layer 2 ink (@inkonchain), Succinct (@SuccinctLabs), Sahara (@SaharaLabsAI) and other test network projects
- Ice Cream Warrior: I will definitely participate in Monad, and I am also participating in projects like linera, sahara ai, abstract, eclipse, yala network and other small projects, which I will share on my Twitter.
- Crypto dog: I like the projects that talk vaguely about airdrops, they are usually discouraging. This is even worse than gambling, at least Texas Hold'em can improve your chances of winning through strategy or team collaboration, and Baccarat can also get returns based on periodic rules. Projects with community incentive announcements that are not clear about potential returns, interactive projects that waste time and money. I think what this friend said is very right, very suitable for the current stage.
- There are a lot of things to do now, I have the most deployed accounts in the test network airdrops, and the ones I'm currently deploying are:
- Walrus Protocol, Monad, Eclipse, Sahara AI, Lens Protocol, Mind Network, MegaETH, Initia, Grass, Teaprotocol, Fragmetric, Abstract, Meteora, Silencio, AethirCloud, Natix, DAWN
Other sharing content
Meme Eos: Actually, I feel that many ways can also be considered meme, like some short-window opportunities, such as Arc 20's ATOM, Binance Wallet's BID, or even Trump-like. Or like grinding NFT projects for whitelist, community identity and so on. You can choose the direction of meme based on your own strengths and preferences. For meme, I feel it's best to walk on two legs, sometimes meme for a long time without any returns, it really makes people want to give up.
Watermelon: Meme is PvP, you're earning the money from the other side's pocket. While meme is PvE, it's from the VCs, the users in the circle are very friendly and willing to share with each other, I suggest new entrants to actively interact and learn.
