Have you ever seen a memecoin pump 20x right after launch? There was a Launchpad project that, on its very first day, shot straight from $0.5 to $10. If you were lucky enough to snag 1,000 tokens ahead of time, you could have cashed out $20,000 that day! This kind of wealth creation is even crazier than mining.

But there are way more wipeouts. Not long ago, an ecosystem token on a certain public chain surged 15x on its listing day, and the community was buzzing with cries of “wealth code unlocked.” The result? Three days later it went to zero and rugged. Those who bought at the top saw 90% of their principal evaporate. The people who were flaunting profit screenshots on Discord don’t even dare change their avatars now.

These two cases together are a real lesson: new tokens launch without any circuit breaker mechanisms, so it’s all a psychological game. You might get rich overnight, or you could lose everything in an instant—going from Porsche dreams straight back to the reality of cramming on the subway.

The wildest thing about crypto is that you never know whether paradise or hell is next. It feels good watching others make bank, but when it’s your turn to get rekt, don’t forget this game is zero-sum by nature.