In the past, when I watched the yield pools in blockchain games, I’d still stare at “whether the output is big enough.” Now, though, I check the inflation curve first: how much gets issued every day, and whether the players’ consumption of the entry has kept up. To put it simply, the output is sweet—but if it’s sweet for too long, it turns sickeningly sugary, and everyone starts wanting to turn the sugar into money instead. Then what remains in the pool isn’t liquidity anymore; it’s anxiety.

There’s also an old problem: early-stage data looks good, and later on they just keep it alive by accelerating token issuance—but the more they try to “extend it,” the more hollow it gets… I’ve recently seen a few projects with exactly that same vibe. By the way, people outside are also using ETF capital inflows and outflows and the risk appetite in the U.S. stock market to explain crypto’s rises and falls, and I do look at that too. But small pools like blockchain games often aren’t that synchronized with the broader market. More often, it’s their own internal inflation draining them from the inside. Anyway, I’d rather go slower now, with less output—at least then I won’t wake up one day to find the pool has been drained.