Lately, I’ve been getting a bit too caught up in earning testnet points. It started as “practice” to build up the feel, but somehow, as I kept practicing, I began to do math—“If they issue tokens, how much could I get?” Once expectations are in place, people easily stop being rational: they know full well that on-chain interaction is just like doing practice questions—if the question bank changes, everything is instantly worthless—yet they still push through, clicking every day until the early hours. My stop-loss is rather simple and a bit crude: set a budget and a time limit—if it goes over, I stop. And whenever I see projects start telling stories, or the group starts “competing” by posting screenshots, I remind myself: this isn’t actual usage; it’s just a volume/performance show. I step back first.

Recently, the unlock calendar got brought up again, and it’s downright scary. That kind of “sell-pressure anxiety” from staking unlocks can spread to the testnet side too—everyone’s afraid of missing out, afraid they won’t get the allocation. Put plainly, the point of practice is to be ready for real use later, not to tie yourself to an expectation that might never even happen. For now, I’ll just do it this way—I’d rather be able to sleep through the night than click a few more buttons.