🪙 Staking: The Dream of Passive Income Locked with Hope

#CryptoScamSurge

Back when I first heard about staking, I thought it was a financial revolution.

Imagine: we don’t need to work, just hold the coin, click the "Stake" button, and the world will pay us because... we're kind?

Yeah, that's about how the ad goes.

"Support the network," he said.

"Earn passive income," he said.

But the reality is: we give the coins, they get rich.

I started staking when the market was euphoric. Tokens were flying around, the APYs made conventional banks jealous. Some offered 15% per year. Even some offered 100%—like inviting us to buy a dream. I joined. Because who can resist the temptation of 'profit while sleeping'?

But the following days were not about sleeping.

I woke up every morning… opened the chart.

My coins are locked, and the price is dropping.

I could only watch.

Staking turns out not to be early retirement, but to be a spectator of a tragedy drama.

Every week, I receive rewards. But funny enough, the rewards are the same token—whose value keeps dropping. So, it's like being given a sack of chewing gum, while what I need is rice. Plenty, but not filling.

I once asked in a forum, "Is this normal?"

They say, "Don’t worry, the project is good."

Three weeks later, the dev team changed its name and disappeared.

And I, still locked in a smart contract, along with feelings of regret and an APY that has become just a narrative.

At that time I thought I was unlucky. But then I realized:

it's not me who is unlucky, I just didn't become part of the powerful.

Because staking is not about everyone making a profit.

The rich are the validators—they are the ones who own nodes, receiving fees from us.

Or major exchanges that stake using client funds, give us 5%, and use the rest for promotions or—even worse—for listing strange coins.

But I also learned. That staking can be profitable—if you enter with your head, not with FOMO.

I know someone who staked ETH when the price was $900. Now he's relaxed. Receiving rewards, and the price is rising. He knows what he bought. He knows why he staked. And he doesn’t check the chart every day while hoping.

Unlike me back then, who staked because a friend said, "Dude, the APY is super profitable!"

Now I know, staking is not a quick way to get rich.

If you pick the wrong token, you're not an investor, you're a volunteer for inflation.

And if you time it wrong, you're not the owner of the future, but a resident in the waiting room of losses.

But I do not regret it. Because from there, I learned one important thing: In staking, what gets locked is not just the token. But also logic, if you enter because of euphoria.

Now, if there's a new project inviting me to stake with promises of high APY, I only ask one thing: "Who benefits the most from all this?"

If the answer is not me, well—I'll just watch from afar. While making coffee.

And believe me... coffee is much more calming than an APY that turns out to be a lie.