FOMO, Your Web 3 Journey’s Worst Enemy
Lesson n°1 in the web3 space should probably be: “Thee Will Not FOMO.”
FOMO will cost you money, time that will never come back, and even your mental health.
Today’s article discusses how to help you dodge one of the worst web3 bullets.
Why is FOMO a Threat in the Web3 Space?
Thee will not truly know the meaning of FOMO(Fear Of Missing Out) until you’ve stepped into the web3 space, especially NFTs.
Resisting FOMO is almost impossible, especially in your first months in this space.
Why?
Because 99% of NFT & Crypto projects are built to create FOMO, and many of them are VERY GOOD at it!
Which creates the perfect environment for scammers to successfully scam you. We discuss this at length in our article “BAYC Holders Keep Getting Rekted, We Know Why.”
The FOMO in the NFT space is the perfect embodiment of the worst type of FOMO you could experience in web3. Crypto projects follow, in spirit if not in design, the same kind of MO, so we will use NFTs as our matrix:
Projects will create a reality where they are, without a doubt, the next “blue chip.” They will convince you that they will sell out immediately and reach the moon in a beat. They’re the chance of a lifetime for you. They’re the project that will make all your dreams come true.
FOMO is exacerbated because the time frame is usually extremely short between the launch of the project and its mint.
Consequently, the FOMO strategy will make you buy first and think later.
And here lies the trap.
Losing Your Critical Thinking
You will see a project that will grab your attention, and you may think this is it!
To be on the list of the lucky selected few that will have access to the presale and be assured of getting your hands on this NFT, you will join the community immediately because, remember, you don’t have much time (and grind).
And this is when you could find yourself losing some of your critical thinking.
When you step into an NFT project, you become a part of it.
Ridden by the FOMO, you will spend so much time within the community, investing your free time and yourself, sometimes creating deep parasocial relationships with other community members or the project founders. You become an actor, sometimes even a pillar of the community.
What you will feel very quickly for the project is devotion, and you will dedicate yourself to the project’s success.
And as your investment in this project grows, your faith grows, and you will lose more and more of your ability to analyze the project with neutrality.
So much so that sometimes when you find yourself implicated with shady/scammy projects, and when some people will raise legitimate questions, you will call them FUDers, and when you see red flags, you will find excuses and justifications and stand even firmer in your beliefs.
That’s why FOMO and FOMOing create the perfect conditions for successful scams. And, unfortunately, FOMO is an intrinsic part of NFT Culture as of now.
That’s why in the web3 space, there is nowhere, not even in crypto, where you can observe so much scamming happening as in NFTs. In 2022, at the very least, 159 million were lost to NFT fraudulent projects.
Although January 2023 and its $10,2M loss to 16 exit scams as well as the growing disinterest in NFTs in the latest months, could be an unwanted promise that crypto projects rugging will overtake NFT rug pulls in the coming year.
All in all, it just gives you vertigo.
FOMOing makes it so we ultimately lose critical thinking, and we just jump in.
And sometimes, we jump into traps.
Little Tips to Try and Quit the FOMO Mindset
1.Do not join any community without, in the first place, going all Inspector Gadget on the project. This way, you will not be influenced by other people in the community before you’ve made your own conclusions.
But do join the community, without participating, to observe, and find red flags if they exist.
If you think you don’t have time to DYOR, well, think about the time you will invest grinding for a project that will wipe out all of your assets?
2.Adopt a healthy approach to your investment. Stop “betting” on projects and develop a due diligence strategy to make you approach these projects with a cool head.
Even after you’ve joined a community, you will know to stay highly aware of everything going on, and when you spot something suspicious, you will ask hard questions and not put on blinkers.
3. Do not trust blindly supposed “Alpha” on twitter, discord, telegram groups. “Alphas” have been, are, and will fall victim to rug pull projects too.
4. Reminder: There are always opportunities in web3. It’s okay to bypass a project.If something does not sit well with you, do not buy into the FOMO.
If this project you’ve your eyes on suddenly becomes a success, remember that what worried you about this project did not go away and will come knocking at its door, if not now, later. So instead of thinking of the money you did not gain, think about all the money you’ve not lost by practicing precaution with all these other projects that turned out to be rug pulls or Ponzi schemes.
No need to chew your hat over “missed opportunities.”
5. If you feel you’re in a bad mental space and are FOMOing hard, take yourself out of the web3 space. And do it now. Touch the grass, ground yourself in real life, and go down from the high.
CONCLUSION
Nobody is immune to FOMOing. FOMOing is undoubtedly not a failing; it’s just profoundly human.
Only by redefining our mindset deeply and building good, healthy, safe habits will we be able to protect ourselves from the worst web3 can offer.
We talked at length here; about how to completely reset your mindset to keep you safe in this space.
Remember that during bear markets, it’s even more crucial to take every precaution possible because we’re so much more vulnerable in search of “redeeming” ourselves.
Stay safe!
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