Thoughts Triggered by the zkSync Airdrop

In the past couple of days, I read about a Twitter user’s experience with zkSync.

This user has spent a significant amount of time, energy, and financial resources over the years consistently engaging in various transactions on zkSync. During this period, the user's dedication and focus received unwavering support from his wife. Even in the toughest times, his wife had complete faith in him.

However, the result of this effort was a complete failure. This undoubtedly struck the user like a bolt from the blue, shattering his psychological defenses.

In the comments of this post, the user also shared his experience—he even resigned from his job to fully commit to this endeavor in order to maximize his returns.

The experiences of this user and some commenters evoke mixed feelings.

Today, I mention this experience primarily to share some serious mistakes that I believe this user made throughout the entire event, hoping that our readers can avoid these pitfalls in the future and prevent similar tragedies from occurring.

In anything we do, the first step is to have the right overall strategy, and then to refine the details. If the overall strategy is correct, minor inaccuracies in details may only result in slower progress and lower efficiency; but if the overall strategy is wrong, no matter how well the details are refined, it will be in vain.

In this case, I think one serious mistake made by the user was having the wrong overall strategy.

The practice of "yield farming" has evolved to a point where it is no longer the once egalitarian model. Nowadays, the policies set by project teams are very strict, aimed at preventing tokens from being airdropped to speculators who lack loyalty to the project.

Under this premise, project teams typically adopt one of two approaches:

1. Clearly announce the airdrop criteria, like projects such as Blast and EigenLayer—those who stake more assets receive more airdrops.

2. Do not clearly announce the airdrop criteria, always using ambiguous language to keep the community guessing. This allows people to see hope but not a clear outcome.

For the first approach, we can see that it is simply a game of who has more money. In such games, participants should act within their means and participate appropriately. The final airdrop may or may not happen.

In this type of game, retail investors are less likely to be hurt because they can see the rules are unfavorable to them; even slightly rational retail investors would not place heavy bets in such games. Not placing heavy bets means they won't experience "the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment."

The second approach is a game of chance. It lacks clear rules but presents a seemingly "huge" opportunity, which can easily create illusions.

In this type of play, the project team holds all the power, while participants have no bargaining rights. However, this type of game is most likely to lead participants to become overly excited and get hurt. The above case is a tragedy caused by this type of game.

But if we can suppress our inner greed and calm down to think, it should not be difficult to realize: in a game where the rules are unclear and fairness and transparency are questionable, if participants can still profit, it is purely luck.

Since it is luck, we should not bet our entire fortune and stake everything on a gamble.

Therefore, placing heavy bets and gambling in such games is fundamentally the wrong strategy.

The rational approach is what I have previously written in my articles: participate appropriately as long as time, energy, and financial resources allow.

If we delve deeper, we will actually find that these participants have a larger issue in their minds: the obsession with "getting rich overnight."

Whether it is the user's "all-out effort," the commenters' "full-time operation," etc., all of these actions are triggered by this obsession.

This obsession has eroded 99.9999999% of people in the crypto ecosystem.

Because they missed Bitcoin, they hope to hit it big with altcoins and "get rich overnight."

Because they missed Ethereum, they hope to hit it big with Ethereum killers and "get rich overnight."

Because they missed Bitcoin and Ethereum, they hope to hit it big with MEME coins and "get rich overnight."

Because they missed ORDI, they hope to hit it big with other inscriptions and "get rich overnight."

Because they missed all the coins, they hope to "get rich overnight" through yield farming.

…

In this cycle of "getting rich overnight," there are certainly some success stories, but we should carefully consider how large that proportion really is.

Even if there are, why should it be you or me?

Therefore, for these speculative games, participating with a calm and opportunistic mindset is, in my view, the most suitable approach for retail investors.