In the crypto space, some so-called 'big players' are keen on guiding novice users, with complex and varied motivations behind it, including genuine sharing and possible hidden interest calculations. The following analyzes possible reasons from different angles to help beginners rationally view the phenomenon of 'big players guiding.'
One, positive motivation: genuine sharing and ecosystem building.
Industry evangelism and reputation accumulation.
Some big players have experienced the early wild phase of the industry and hope to help beginners lower the entry threshold, promoting cryptocurrency adoption, which objectively facilitates market expansion.
For example, early Bitcoin community geeks used forums and tutorials to freely educate about mining and trading knowledge, enhancing industry awareness and accumulating a reputation as 'industry pioneers.'
Building trust relationships and cultivating long-term users.
Some advocates of decentralized projects (like DeFi protocol developers) attract beginners to participate in the ecosystem through free training, forming a symbiotic relationship of 'users - projects - big players.'
Case: Core members of a certain DAO organization help novices participate in liquidity mining, both helping users earn profits and injecting liquidity into the protocol, achieving a win-win.
Teaching and learning from each other, improving one's own understanding.
The process of explaining complex concepts (like smart contracts, Layer 2) to beginners forces big players to reorganize their knowledge system and discover cognitive gaps.
Charlie Munger once said, 'If you want to fully understand something, try explaining it to a 12-year-old child.' The process of guiding beginners is similar.
Two, neutral motivation: monetizing traffic and resource integration.
Building personal IP, harvesting attention economy.
The crypto space is a typical 'attention market,' where big players attract followers by guiding novices for free (like live calls, community analysis), and then monetize in the following ways:
Paid courses: Claiming 'exclusive strategies' and 'insider information,' priced from hundreds to tens of thousands.
Advertising cooperation: After growing fan base, generating traffic for exchanges and projects to earn commissions (e.g., contract invitation codes with a rebate rate as high as 50%).
Selling goods to harvest chives: recommending worthless coins and low-quality projects, harvesting novice funds through 'market value management' (pumping and dumping).
Low-cost acquisition of labor and data.
Some big players form 'retail investor legions,' getting novices to perform specific operations on-chain (like interacting with testnets, inflating trading volume), completing project cold starts at low cost.
Risk: novices may unknowingly become tools for 'witch attacks' (fake accounts inflating volume), and be held accountable by regulators once projects go live.
Building community barriers to filter potential partners.
By guiding novices, filtering out followers with 'high loyalty and strong execution,' gradually cultivating them into core team members or offline agents, forming a hierarchical system of 'big players - small captains - retail investors.'
Similar to a pyramid structure, bottom-level retail investors provide connections and funds for the upper levels, while big players gain excess returns through control.
Three, negative motivation: harvesting chives and manipulating the market.
Reverse following, profiting from information asymmetry.
Big players release 'position building signals' in the community, but actually lay out reverse contracts in advance (e.g., letting novices buy long while they short), profiting from retail investor's fund fluctuations.
Principle: 70% of retail investors in the cryptocurrency market lose money, and big players achieve profit by 'harvesting the losers,' that is, 'the money retail investors lose = the money big players earn.'
Creating false prosperity, pumping and dumping.
Big players collaborate with project parties and exchanges, leading novices to buy a certain token in the community, combined with positive news (like fake partnership announcements) to inflate the price, and then sell at a high point (commonly known as 'cashing out').
Case: In 2023, a certain MEME coin big player called out in the community, 'Target 10 times,' after retail investors followed suit and bought in, the big player cashed out when the price doubled, causing the coin price to plummet by 80%.
Harvesting leverage, profiting from liquidation funds.
Some exchanges' 'contract mentors' intentionally guide novices to use high leverage (like 100 times), and provide frequent trading strategies, leading retail investors to frequently get liquidated, while exchanges and mentors share from liquidation funds (about 30% of liquidation coins are distributed to profit takers).
Four, what beginners must know: How to distinguish real big players from scammers?
Look for interest binding:
Real big players will share risks with you (e.g., public trading, positions consistent with retail investors), while scammers will only let you take the bait, keeping their own positions empty or operating in the opposite direction.
Check historical records:
Request at least 1 year of trading records, focusing on maximum drawdown (real big players ≤30%, scammers often >50%) and profit-loss ratio (real big players ≥2:1).
Ask key questions:
Ask 'how to deal with black swan events' and 'specific rules for position management'; real big players can provide quantitative standards (e.g., 'single trade stop loss ≤2%'), while scammers dodge with vague statements like 'maintain a good mindset.'
Avoid traps:
Truly scarce resources (e.g., early private placement quotas, institutional strategies) are not shared for free; those who proactively offer 'guidance' are mostly scammers with zero cost tricks.
Conclusion: there’s no free lunch in the crypto space.
Beginners should remember: in the decentralized, poorly regulated crypto space, the essence of 'big players guiding' is a game of interests - either you create value for others (like traffic, funds), or you are seen as value (like harvestable chives).
Improving recognition and making independent decisions is more important than blindly following. As Buffett said, 'If you can't tell who the chives are in a game, then you are the chives.' This statement is especially applicable in the crypto space.
