I’ve been running quite a lot of testnets recently—how should I put it? At the start, I genuinely treated it like practice: to get familiar with the process, with zero cost, and it felt great. But once there’s an expectation of points or rewards, people (including me) get weird. You keep thinking, “Will there be an air drop?” “Will it be a waste run again?” and your blood pressure starts to swing.

A few days ago I looked at a new protocol—on TG, that TW… anyway, the interaction is just刷 (you have to do it frequently). The result was that on-chain gas kept climbing. In the end, not only did the air drop never show up, but I also spent a lot of fees. Looking back now, I think you’ve got to set a stop-loss. For example, for myself, I set a clear timeline: if within a week I don’t see official, relatively clear rules or any positive direction, I’ll decisively scale back my effort. Or I set a fixed number of manual operations I can tolerate per week; if I exceed it, I won’t touch it anymore—so I don’t fall into an endless pit.

Especially lately, I’ve been hearing some rumors that compliance policies in certain regions are tightening, and withdrawal-related expectations have become a bit delicate. If anything changes, the cost could end up being higher. So I’m more convinced that testnets should be managed like a project with a fixed time budget, not something you just endlessly刷.

I made a decision: next time I open a new testnet, I’ll first block off two hours to understand it thoroughly, then make a plan. Do you set a stop point? Or do you just go with your instincts?