I invested €13,930 in crypto in total.

All from 2017 to 2020.

Not a cent more of my fiat has gone into crypto since then.

Only out to filthy fiat (to feed my familia). My salary was simply too low to invest more, and I quit my job in 2022.

Luckily, I made great trades over the years: being early on ETH, later this cycle buying SOL, and finally rotating to HYPE at $12 USD.

But to be fair, it was airdrops that made me.

More precise, the DeFi summer airdrops:

- I farmed $YFI from day one

- Got $UNI, $CRV, $DYDX and almost all notable airdrops from DeFI summer

- The highest airdrop I’ve ever received was $120K USD in $INV for, wait for it, submitting a google form survey promising to help Inverse Finance.

Note: I hoped it would hit $500K, so I didn’t sell at $120K and ended up selling after a 50% drop.

Airdrops was the real 'seed' capital that I leveraged from 2022.

2024 was great in airdrops, too!

From $JTO, $ETFI, $KAITO (thx so much), to my last airdrop 3 months ago, Monad.

The point I'm making: without airdrops I wouldn't have made it to where I am today.

Even if I had put all ~14k EUR into ETH at $200, I would be barely 10x to to 140k EUR. Good money, but not life changing.

And we were super early back then!

Not anymore.

For someone who starts with the same €13,930, the chances of 'making it' are MUCH MUCH lower right now than in the 2018-2022 period.

Sure, ETH could do another 10x. BTC as well. Some moonshots will always appear but catching it with size are slim.

Worst? Is that the machine that made me, airdrops, are dying.

Although I believe they will make a come back, the stories of 100k for a google docs survey or a 20k airdrop for a few swaps are gone.

No surprise that degens turned to 100x perp trades and memecoins. Sadly, they failed to create the wealth effect that airdrops had.

This cycle was not a story of rags to riches, but rather a story of mid-wealth to rags.

So much value destruction that really became apparent when $MELANIA launched and later 10/10 hit.

Anyway... I don't plan to put more EUR into crypto. Only out.

I'll simply recycle my gains trading, airdrop farming etc until I either get generational wealth or lose enough that I will call quits.

And that's the problem: many crypto natives I talk to are like me. Only out, not in.

So institutions are supposed to be our saviours, buying our bags.

But I hope we can create opportunities for our younger selves, notably the Gen Z with 'just' €13,930 to actually make it.

Where are those opportunities? Who are building it?

RWAs, yield stablecoins, 'low-risk DeFi', neobanks etc. are all great products when you already made it because 5% yield on Aave is good enough for you.

But they are not wealth making machines that airdrops were.

What are those opportunities now in crypto? If any?

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