Lately, I've been obsessively testing the testnet points, and it's starting to feel a bit surreal.

It was originally just practice, but then a bunch of people started treating it as "expected income," and their mindset immediately shifted.
When TVL drops, I feel heartbroken, but honestly, what I fear more is throwing time and transaction fees into a black hole: the more wallets I open, the more tasks become like clocking in at a job.

So how do I set a stop-loss for myself?
I'm pretty simple now: spend at most two nights on each project + a fixed Gas budget, and stop if I go over;
review once a week, focusing only on two things—whether genuine users have stayed, and whether the team continues to deliver (not just posting images).
If all that's left is "more competitive interaction," I’ll consider it paying tuition and withdraw.

Social mining and fan tokens also seem quite similar…
Attention is mining? Sounds great, but in the end, it might just be everyone liking each other's posts, and after the excitement, it turns into a mess.

Should I keep testing?
Yes, but only test what I can learn from—don't treat practice as salary.