Musings on the Old Days of Crypto

I was rummaging in some of my old crypto wallets from back-in-the-day and some of the ancient tokens I found in those wallets and how I got them had me thinking back to my early crypto days.
In those early days in crypto, expressions such as "to the moon" and "wen Lambo" were commonplace on most crypto forums. It's now rare to see these expressions. Now it's more of "wen listing", ""wen airdrop" and "wen distribution". This got me wondering about this change in social behavior.

Back then when projects launched, they listed tokens almost immediately, communities then got built around the narrative surrounding the token and its price action. In fact some projects launched tokens with no website, no roadmaps, no utilities or narratives and started thinking of a vision for the project only after the tokens started getting traction in the market. Those were crazy times.
Now projects build communities first and try to hype up the token before launching it. If the hype is not giving the desired outcome then the projects take forever to launch and list their tokens. And in some cases, simply shutdown.

Personally, I prefer the former approach of launching and listing. It made the crypto space more fun as we searched through various forums looking for newly launched gems that could go up in price and make us rich. This led to the infamous "to the moon" and "wen Lambo" expressions as we anxiously watched the charts hoping our purchased tokens will blow up. Early investors in those days were more likely to hold their purchased tokens as they waited for other people to discover the project and boost its price. That is how I ended up with some of these old (and now worthless) tokens that are still in my old crypto wallets till today.

The new approach of community building before launch usually leads to the token getting massive dumps by the community members once it gets listed. With the exception of a few projects with strong narratives, early investors in the community-first projects rarely hold on to tokens for fear that the larger community will dump on them. The current trend is also now more of a test of patience and endurance as we endlessly wait for a hyped up project to launch their token. The process of community building also means more airdrop offerings which puts a lot of free tokens in the hands of community members.
Having a big community behind a project usually means some reduced risks and greater chance of success for the token but the boredom of waiting for token launches can be mind-numbing and cause many community members to dump and quit the project once they can finally get to trade their tokens.

Needless to say, each approach has its advantages and disadvantages. But as I earlier said, I enjoyed the approach of project first and community building later.
Don't get me wrong, there were lots of failed projects back then and projects were more likely to rug pull, especially with little or no community to police the project owners. But it was exciting, adventurous and occasionally you got lucky.

In the end, no particular approach has a guarantee of success so it's left for project owners to pick the approach they think will work in their favour.

As I sift through the wallet contents, I smile and sigh as I recall both the thrill and the sometimes shattered hopes of those early crypto days. There is lesser risk in crypto these days but as the old saying goes, I sometimes miss the fun of the good (wild) old days.

Thanks for reading.