Back when I looked at PFPs, it was just for a good-looking avatar and for the group to be lively for a couple of days. But now, it looks more like a hybrid of “a membership card + brand identity”: whether it can last long-term isn’t about how expensive the art is—it’s about whether you can keep receiving certain, guaranteed things after you hold it (events, governance, content, or even just dependable communication). Even my obsessive-compulsive tendencies make me scrutinize their signatures, contracts, and authorization processes; no matter how good at storytelling they are, projects with poor execution quality still can’t stand up to scrutiny.

Recently, hardware wallets have been out of stock, and phishing links are especially everywhere… To put it plainly, the hotter the attention, the denser the traps. PFPs that trend in the short term often ride a wave of FOMO; if security education doesn’t keep up, the end result is that the community is left only to blame each other. I’d rather slow down now, and first of all, treat my wallets in layers and every link as suspicious. After all, brands need to build for the long run—the first thing should be to prevent users from being hurt in the first place.