After doing tasks for too long, I gradually realize one thing: your mindset starts to go bad. At the beginning, it really was “practice”—running nodes, calling contracts, and checking whether the UI is smooth. But once the protocol started emphasizing “points” and “expected airdrops,” the state of mind changed. Even though it was still the same testnet and I hadn’t spent real money on gas, I started calculating in my head, “How much is this interaction worth?”

After a certain L1 upgrade recently, some teams have started discussing whether to migrate the ecosystem. I think the underlying “migration” might still be minor; what’s actually easy to make people slip up is the migration of strategy—from exploring as a pure white-hat to chasing points, without even setting a stop-loss.

Anyway, I’ve set myself a pretty dumb threshold: if I’ve been working on a chain for more than a week and they haven’t officially published the economic model, I should stop and treat it as “practice” only. After all, the time spent is also a sunk cost. I’m a bit afraid I’ll set my expectations for the airdrop too high, and in the end all I get is a “better luck next time” outcome. If I can’t stay calm myself, someone in the community can leave a comment to remind me.