This is very true:
4 good decisions in my past have made the majority of my net worth so far.
The other trades were just part of the learning curve, and part of making the connections that ultimately led to the king-maker trades.
Decision 1: Tensor
I went all in on Tensor and grinded the airdrop every day for a few months.
@Notfgod built a market making bot back then with a few colleagues. I was lucky enough to know him from Emperors DAO, back in my active NFT days in 2022-23.
I ended up being one of a handful alongside him, his friends and others using the bot to climb the ranks on Tensor.
While doing that, I was actively discussing strategies to maximize Tensor points in several groups and DAOs, including Welfare's Discord, where I met @Henrik_on_HL.
He was farming Tensor too and was pretty active in the group, so I DM'd him. Turned out he spoke the exact same language I did xD
We'd chat about new strategies, alpha and check in weekly on how many points we'd each earned.
Tensor ended up being a huge success. I cleared a solid 5-figure airdrop.
Decision 2: Hyperliquid
After that, Henrik convinced me to try this new DEX called Hyperliquid, which apparently was going to be a big deal.
I traded some spot tokens and found myself in another farm, exchanging alpha back and forth with Henrik again.
Was a bit late to HL and ended up selling my airdrop too early, which could have been worth a solid 5 figures as well. Didn't matter though, because I stayed in the HL ecosystem after the airdrop.
I learned a lot about HL spot tokens, made solid profits in the Hypurr Pump trenches (HL OGs will remember these times haha), and got properly familiar with perps DEXs in general.
So I joined Panda Land led by @derteil00, a big community around HL spot tokens at the time, to lock in further on the HL ecosystem.
Cleared another 5 figures.
Decision 3: Lighter
Then @derteil00 started sharing Lighter, the first perps DEX to offer zero fees.
I noticed a few very sharp traders in my circle joining too, so I got curious.
After some due diligence, I found myself in the next farm. It resulted in a fat airdrop, the biggest I've received to date.
Two things made this one work. First, I was early and put in the work. Second, I was fast at one specific thing: onboarding people.
I spotted a big inefficiency in Lighter's referral program. Every trader only got 3 invite codes per week, but demand for those codes was far bigger than supply.
So I found a way to get an unlimited number of invite codes and distributed them across my whole network.
I was one of maybe 3 people with unlimited codes, because I had the courage to speak up, negotiated good conditions and worked hard to onboard as many people as humanly possible.
My brother Henrik unfortunately didn't join, even though I shared it with him repeatedly. You can't be in every trade. He now has well over 12,000 Variational points, so I doubt he's losing sleep over it lmao.
Decision 4 (in progress): Variational
While farming Lighter, Henrik sent me a Variational invite, which was gated to a small group of people back then.
After doing my research, a lot of boxes ticked green, especially the team, which I was genuinely bullish on. So I started trading there too, and shared my conviction with my community and inner circle again.
And the rest is history.
1/ How I infiltrated a Chinese organized crime syndicate that has laundered $1B+ across multiple exploits for Lazarus Group.
Posing as a client, I gathered intel that helped action freezes for the Feb 2025 Bybit exploit and attribute illicit activity onchain.
Guess how much I won on @Thrill_com.
Been degening my way through and somehow walked away with a pretty nice win.
Closest guess wins some free money from me.