My fellow retards,
How does one tell a scam from incompetence, and incompetence from the real deal?
If you go in search of Balrogs, to the depths of ancient bitcointalk, you might find early posts that discuss Ethereum right after Vitalik showcased it to the world at the Miami conference. Phon/ongod read those, and knew instantly that Vitalik was yet another scammer. That community was quick to cast doubt on any “altcoin” project because if it wasn’t bitcoin, it could only be a scam.
Things have changed. Markets have evolved. Brilliant scientists have entered this space and pushed the technology forward. Most of the massive L1s launches are *not* scams, but are instead quite logical tradeoffs from choices Ethereum made.
Many projects look to sell you a system that isn’t necessary with a token that isn’t needed to solve a problem that doesn’t really exist. These projects will always exist. Opportunistic snake oil salesman will always gravitate towards money and unwitting exuberance. Crypto is their haven right now.
What phon/ongod should have done was read the Ethereum white paper…joined their forum, asked questions—gone to meetups in order to form an opinion, rather than cower behind the shieldwall of neckbeards that was bitcointalk. Eventually (far too late) it was an in-person meetup that shined the light on what Ethereum actually is.
It seems much easier to look someone in the eye while they give you a pitch, in order to determine the truth. People generally aren’t great liars, but the exceptional ones will get you no matter what. For the most part though, you should try to talk to a human, in person or over video chat rather than just in the discord you found all the way down on some colorful, buzzword-laden website…You can’t be sure if those 10,000 discord members are bots, boobs or the next vitalik. Likely not boobs, not in this space.
Come up with the questions you have, request the team do AMAs or hang outs and pepper them. If they do not have good answers to obvious questions, then their system may be flawed, they may be naïve, and you probably shouldn’t park your funds there. The best projects to join are ones where it’s not about the money, but the build. A community with a shared belief system and the right tech will bring about that goal, and understands that answering hard questions is the only way to do it right.
It *feels* like the phonon community has a shared belief system, but it’s impossible to say right now. Many care about privacy and the rights of the sovereign individual. This is important. Groups that have shared identities are stronger, their projects have more staying power, and they are driven by more than just money. Those are the projects to find and join.
Phonon DAO Discord awaits, full of real live humans.
Targets for the marketcap of PHONON DAO remain:
$1b by Q2 2022, $12b by EOY.
On the high end, $300b marketcap in 3 years.