I’ve been looking at treasury expenditure reports from a few projects lately, and it’s pretty interesting. I used to think that as long as the team posts a weekly update regularly and “checks off milestones,” they must be doing things seriously. Later I realized that what actually makes you feel reassured isn’t what they say—it’s whether the on-chain fund movements match the frequency and scenarios in real development.

To put it bluntly, if the flow of funds is out of sync with the actual development pace, then no matter how pretty the milestones look, they’re just a PowerPoint progress bar. Chain games are a classic example: once the economic model starts running, studios start entering in batches; when inflation kicks in, the token price spirals downward. Even if the team keeps saying, “We’re still working,” it can’t stop user outflows. In that situation, I’ll quietly turn off the follow button and tell myself not to force it just because the timing feels wrong.

In fact, when I pay attention to a project, it’s often not because its future looks brighter. It’s because it makes me feel like, “This team is still alive, and still seriously thinking.” When I decide to unfollow, it’s usually not because I lost money—it’s because that feeling of “they’re just going through the motions with me” becomes too obvious. People who move slowly are like that: they’d rather wait longer than have their trust repeatedly overdrawn.