[Week 119]Weekend-Engagement - Never shall I ever fall for a scam without use case again

This weekend I decided that never again shall I...fall for stupid scams that I could smell for miles and still fall for.

So I had this friend, he got me into crypto and I am thankful for that every single day. Not that it made me rich, but it makes life so much more fun when you have a hobby (that allows you to make money on the side).

That same friend also introduced me to my first crypto mistake, I will not say scam.

Not So Wise

The WISE token was said to look good on paper as it would be ETH backed and we could get in right from the start.

Now I hesitated, as I did not see the use case. But as I was a Crypto baby I followed his advice. Got in with $350, and got out a year later with $300. So that was still a reasonable loss, and I learned my little lesson: "Long-term investments should always be based on a product with a good use case."

Stupid Mistake

Over the next couple of years I made enough other crypto mistakes, but most were mine. Me just not being patient, double-clicking, not reading, or not thinking. Fortunately, they were all minor mistakes.

Now this guy I mentioned has a girlfriend, she also got me into some shady stuff as she was the one who introduced me to HIVE. And also for that, I am still thankful.

She also introduced me to something else, something that from the first day caused me to doubt its use case: Listnerds.

Unlike many others, I have not written anything about Listnerds before as I saw a gap from the start. Now of course you wonder why I still got in, right?

Because I am A Greedy Baby

Indeed, simply because of greed. If you are in early on a scheme you can make a nice buck as long as you take profit or get out on time. As you see I am calling it a scheme and not a scam, the people behind it might have meant well. Might still do, but for now, the project failed BIG TIME.

Why do I say that?

Well, they started with a buying wall, which made Listnerds look very profitable for those few early joiners that got 2 Hive per Listnerd if they were smart enough to timely unstake? Of course, there was a catch, unstaking took 10 weeks.

Meaning for most that joined Listnerds because of that tasty price the buy wall fell too early. And like Russia when the wall fell the community crumbled.

This was worsened by the inflation of Listnerds, initially, you would get 50 Listnerdsforo an approved post, which went up to 1500 for that same post. So basically the market got flooded.

In a couple of months that two Hive per Listnerd went down to getting a HIVE for 100 Listenrds if you are lucky.

Now price doesn´t mean a thing if you can´t compare it to the benefits.

So what is Listenerds?

Well long story short, you get rewarded for creating quality content by your peers. In addition, you can showcase your posts to a bigger audience and increase engagement.

That last part was exactly why I joined, increase engagement. Well that an earning a little while doing so.

Did it work?

Definitely, I found some great content creators, made some virtual friends, and discovered a lot of cool posts. Which I could have done through the free version of Listnerds.
The reason to pay $25 a month was to be able to post more and rake in more listnerds.

Did that work?

Yes, I posted three articles a week and was raking in Listnerd tokens.

Did you make a profit

Now we are getting somewhere. Yes, I made a huge non-financial profit, as Listnerds made me engage and create content more constantly. I got a better understanding of HIVE and many related topics. That in itself was worth the $105 I spend.

Did you make any financial gains?

Well, let´s see... I have about 21K of Listnerds, of which I now sold about 1500. Those 1500 made me about 40 Hive so let's say $25.

Now if I could sell 20K at the current price, I would make another 50 HIVE.

That would be another $25. So now I am only down $50. Did I make that back through the additional exposure of my articles?

Let's see, I would say that a post on Listnerds would on average bring in 10-20 cents more. So let´s go with 15 cents times 12. That would be less than $2 a month, which means that based on the current numbers I would only lose $42 during my 4-month Listnerds subscription.

Now I canceled my subscription when I saw the amount of Listnerds required to pay for my subscription.

4200 freaking listnerds? While you make 160 Listnerds a week if you are lucky. That just did it. Even in the weirdest parallel universe, the math on that one is lost.

Bottom Line

So in both cases the second tip I got from my friends cost me about $50, well life is a lemon and I want my money back.

Nah, just kidding I am the only one to blame. I knew it from the start.
If I can not see the use case, if there is no market that would make your product profitable, that should be a big red flag.
I should control my greed and remember that if someone introduces me to something good that is no guarantee that the next thing they introduce is just as good.

Thank you #weekend-engagement for the prompt that left me enough space to write this fun piece.

All Screenshots are mine gif source below.
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