WARNING: Everyone is Trying to Extract Value From You
Mental Models For Crypto Investing
Theo Delarosa
February 25, 2023
The Cold Harsh Truth
Yes, every single person is trying to extract value from you. You are an economic data point in a larger game. One where billions and trillions of dollars flows. Everything is advertising, marketing, sales gimmicks and storytelling.
Everyone is fighting and vying for your attention so that they can sell you a product, service or idea. They’ve nailed it down to a science how to hack your brain, your eyeballs and your attention. All so that they may profit off you.
Who are they? Companies, projects, protocols, influencers, you name it. Everyone is trying to build an audience, gain trust and respect so that they may profit from their followers at some point. By either selling something to them directly or being paid by others to redirect that audience’s attention they’ve built so that someone else can sell them something.
We live in a capitalist society and it’s incredibly valuable to command attention in an attention economy and make no mistake that crypto is an attention economy.
The Attention Economy
In an attention economy, every individual's attention is a valuable commodity that can be monetized. With so many players competing for attention, it can be challenging to differentiate between genuine and disingenuous. This is where the ability to identify and navigate through the noise becomes crucial.
That influencer or key opinion leader you like? Their end goal is inherently to guide people to buy their bags, buy their whatever or even just think along the same lines as they do - because that’s how business and life works. Everyone wants and needs to get paid.
This becomes crucial when evaluating crypto and developing ideas and biases. Why do you like that project or service? Who’s promoting it? What’s their financial model? At which point in the business model do you come in? Also be asking questions.
Nobody would be wasting their time creating content for you, researching, promoting and investing resources into getting the word out about something if there wasn’t the potential to profit.
Brutal Zero Sum Game
You must get this clearly and firmly into your head. Everyone is trying to sell you something or influence you. You must be wary. Crypto is 100% a brutal zero sum game. For some to make an obscene amount of money, others must lose. Wealth is neither created nor destroyed - it is merely transferred from one party to another.
Billions of dollars flowing around and countless players whose sole professional intention is to redirect your attention down an avenue that is profitable for them.
VCs, influencers, researchers, thread writers, marketers, protocols, key opinion leaders, you name it. All trying to extract value from you. There’s a food chain and we’re all just combatants in the still underregulated wild west of financial speculation that is crypto. Stay safe, stay questioning.
The key takeaway you need is to firmly doubt and question everything. People love to partake in CT, however it’s an echo chamber of people shilling, marketing and regurgitating the same recycled ideas.
All with the clear intention of driving the price of something up, to get you to sign up or buy for something or in some way extract value for you. Be mindful of your place in the food-chain.
Stay safe out there