Can collecting tokens transcend social classes? This topic was something I stumbled upon a few days ago from a Twitter friend. It just triggered some thoughts, but I hadn’t thought of writing an article to express my views. Recently, I’ve seen many people in web3 expressing various anxieties, and I want to share my thoughts on this topic.
I received my first APT airdrop in 2022. At that time, I only had a MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015). I remember watching Twitter tutorials and completing some tasks, though I can’t recall which ones. I just did whatever I saw being posted and checked for airdrops, only doing free tasks. At that time, APT sold for 1500u, which was about over 10,000 yuan. However, compared to the losses I incurred before receiving the airdrop, it felt like a small amount. I’ll discuss the losses later. The impression it left on me was simply shocking, but I only collected with one account then. I didn’t understand the concept of multiple accounts until I saw posts from other bloggers who got rich.
At the end of 2022, I gathered bits and pieces to assemble an E5 in a local computer market and collected tokens for a week with OP's Odyssey. By then, OP had already released tokens. Now that I think about it, I don’t even know why I went for that project; I directly created 100 accounts using a fingerprint browser. At that time, the group control was still bought from Taobao, and the fingerprint browser didn’t have group control functionality. I invested 8000u in real money to do it and lost about 1000u after completing most of the tasks. Then I had to pause collecting due to work reasons. During this time, I also faced major contract liquidations that had a significant impact on my current life, but I’ll discuss that later.
Back to when I collected tokens during the TIA airdrop, around February 2024. I don’t even remember doing it, but when I saw someone post about it, I checked and found out it was real; I received 300 tokens. However, when I tried to deposit, it didn't go through because it wasn't an EVM chain, and since I hadn't done anything with it for a long time, my deposit to Binance didn’t arrive. I had to contact customer service to get it back because that amount of money was significant for me at the time; I had to retrieve it. In the end, they really refunded me, and the token price had tripled since I deposited it, so I passively became wealthy once. I sold around 2000u, and at this point, I felt that I really needed to pick up collecting tokens again because I desperately needed money at that time.
When I returned to study token collecting, I realized I had perfectly missed the explosion of inscriptions, but the Bitcoin ecosystem was thriving, and I caught the Babylon test net to work on that test pioneer. At that time, I couldn’t get any water, and I created 20 accounts, but only 5 accounts completed the task. The Babylon NFT pioneer was at 180-200 MATIC, netting me about 1000u. Actually, I could have bought water to do it, and the cost wasn’t high. I had enough time. If I had bought water, I estimate I could have done over 200 accounts, missing out on a large profit of 200u per account, which was crucially quick, taking just 2 days.
In the following two months, I occasionally ran some Lava scripts and participated in some check-in projects. However, I got busy with work again until a car accident in April 2024 completely changed the trajectory of my life, forcing me to collect tokens full-time. I fractured my rib and had to recover at home, which gave me time to start researching token collection seriously. During this time, I also faced various pressures and life’s trivial matters, but I managed to get through it all.
At that time, I was short on cash and had no starting capital, just one computer. I was extremely cautious with investments. The first token I collected as a full-time collector was from Binance’s megadrop's first project, BounceBit. I decided to participate in the last 3-4 days of the project. I remember checking the number of participants and total points every day to gauge how much each account could earn in tokens and the project's potential valuation, feeling confident that I wouldn't lose. My mom supported me with 10,000 yuan. This round netted me about 1500-2000u in profit. Then came the second round, which earned around 5000u. These two returns motivated me to keep going. But in the second phase, Binance's checks became stricter, locking one of my accounts with over 2000u I couldn’t withdraw. At that time, I thought it was probably hopeless, so I went all in on contracts for fun, and about a month later, I saw I only needed to supplement 280u, and the account could be withdrawn. I was utterly devastated.
Then I made about 7000u profit from working on uxlink, regretting that I did too little in the first wave. I then carelessly bought a few of the 750 NFTs for the second phase, which led to me missing about 70 tokens in the first airdrop due to a witch. At the same time, unexpectedly, I mindlessly brushed through 100 OP Odyssey accounts at the beginning of 2023, which had an Avail airdrop totaling around 35,000 tokens. I didn’t trade before the launch; if I had sold at 0.6, I would have made a lot. I remember selling just over 0.2 at launch, which brought in another 7000u from the windfall. This brings us to the end of August. Because of loan pressures, the money I earned was just enough to cover interest and living expenses. However, these combined earnings were already much higher than what we make as office workers, close to the peak income I had while working in traditional finance.
After the car accident, in order to better recover, I stayed at my mom's house because there were kids at home going to kindergarten. I was afraid they might accidentally hurt me again, so during that time, my efficiency in collecting tokens was particularly high. Because of not’s explosive growth, Telegram projects became popular again. I set up 150 Telegram accounts. At that time, I had no scripts and looked for projects I thought were valuable to participate in. I was constantly checking in on Telegram dogs, which kept getting listed on exchanges, with each account earning about 35,000 tokens. But just a few days before the airdrop, the account vendor retrieved half of my accounts, which left me speechless. Actually, I had prepared multiple KYC to withdraw directly to exchanges, but I didn’t rest well during those days and mixed up the deadlines and launch times for the withdrawals. As a result, on the last day, I still had part of my accounts not registered with the exchange uid and address. Together with the recovered TG accounts, my large tokens turned into small tokens. But fortunately, I did manage to recover a bit.
During that time, I found a way to register an 86 Telegram number by myself and continued to work on the second phase of uxlink while also checking out the move tutorial. I noticed that there was a significant divergence in people's opinions about whether to collect tokens from move; the key issue was that the tasks in the task roadmap might change after you had already completed them, rendering the previous ones obsolete and requiring you to do new ones, which drove people to the brink of mental breakdown.
After watching for a long time, I decided to take my main account and follow the tutorial to see how difficult it was. In the end, I found that it wasn't as hard as I imagined. I gave up on some very complex tasks, but I had to complete the tasks for the temple character. At that time, I remember the most troublesome task was making memes; I made about 200 meme expressions. Also, the test network could freeze at any time. Fortunately, hard work pays off, and I accumulated the largest amount of tokens so far, around 110,000 coins. At that time, I withdrew 75,000 directly to the exchange and locked 36,000 on the mainnet. Now I think I should have withdrawn everything to the exchange. But I am already quite satisfied; after withdrawing, I first dealt with part of my debts and kept some for living expenses, but I still have a lot of debts. The most frustrating part is that I invested more time in the second phase of uxlink than in move, but the returns were drastically different. If I had spent the same time on move, I estimate I could have cleared my debts. However, everyone who tries to collect tokens has faced setbacks; my setbacks were primarily time-related because I didn't want to take the risk of investing money to collect tokens since I really couldn't afford to lose.
Four months into 2025, I haven't hit any decent airdrops. Parit counts as one. Throughout 2024, I was on the test net trying to collect tokens, but the scripts were inadequate. I asked him multiple times to change the Ethereum test net to the arb test net, as the gas fees were too high for the Ethereum test net, which resulted in me not running for about a month. If he had spent a little time making that change for me, my parit income would have likely started at around 5000u. But missing out is just missing out, and I missed a lot, mostly due to a lack of understanding.
So back to the beginning, whether collecting tokens can transcend social classes, I think my one-year personal experience can provide some reference. Wanting to transcend social classes usually stems from dissatisfaction in real life, often tied to money. Most people want to make a big profit quickly, get on solid ground, save enough for their first bucket of gold, etc. However, this might just be the initial thought. If you persist in collecting tokens, these things will pass. You need to think about what it really means to transcend social classes; it's not just about having enough money for A7 or A8. I believe what truly needs to be improved is one’s understanding. This is a limitless endeavor, requiring continuous learning and effort. One can physically relax, but spiritually, one must keep striving. Although I am still in debt while collecting tokens, I believe in the light and that there will come a day when things will get better.
Keep it up, token collectors!
