A Bug's Life

What we can learn from ants when it comes to trading crypto

An Ant Mill is an observed phenomenon in which a group of army ants are separated from the main foraging party, lose the pheromone track and begin to follow one another, forming a continuously rotating circle, commonly known as a "Death Spiral" because the ants might eventually die of exhaustion.

Part 1: Balance

Crypto has 3 main participants

• Investors (Funds, VCs)

• Builders (Shadowy coders)

• Traders (Degens)

All 3 of these actors play a vital role in creating our markets. Without investors throwing money at concepts in their early stage of development, builders would have no incentive to create. Without mass speculation from traders, investors wouldn’t make any returns. All 3 must exist in perfect harmony, whether they like it or not. A perfect example of this is Axie Infinity. Without degens pumping this thing to billions in FDV, all spinoffs wouldn’t get funded and investors wouldn’t be pocketing their management fees on Metaverse / Game-Fi funds. Can’t complete the puzzle without all 3 pieces.

Part 2: Rotation

If you have been in crypto for more than a couple weeks by now you should pick up on this concept of rotation. From my understanding outside of crypto, the journey of money takes a much slower regulated approach. Projects are funded multiple times from early to late stage, then hope they can be acquired or eventually IPO / SPAC to dump on your average couch dwelling Robinhood user. Since crypto is the wild wild west this cycle is greatly expedited but with more transparency. Very profitable for early investors and unfortunately less so for many who find themselves summoning the wrong card. There only exist 2 outcomes in this scenario…

Because this process is much faster in crypto there is always a push to constantly create new narratives. People fail to realize how a very small subsection of the entire crypto ecosystem control this narrative. There is a reason why your average retail trader has a 60mg dose of adderall in a PEZ dispenser on their desk.

Defi → NFTs → Game-Fi → DAOs → L2s → Metaverse → L1s

Defi or Metaverse, no matter what label you slap on it’s always been the same trade.

Part 3: Lost

So within this balance, where do you exist? I can only speak from a traders perspective but to understand these markets you need to put yourself in the shoes of each participant. In this endless rotation the worst thing you can do is blindly follow the ant in front of you. You want to consume as much information as possible but at the same time make your own decision at the end of the day. Why do my friends spend $50 a month on some guy running a chat room (paid group) telling them which basketball team will win the next day? It’s because when they lose, they can put the blame on someone other than themselves. Losing is the best education you can get especially if you are able to identify what went wrong.

Always be asking yourself questions and look for where the incentives are. Why is anon pushing this? Why is this fund buying XXX token? Crypto is relatively transparent, this is a luxury for your average crypto trader. Learn to navigate the chain by using tools such as etherscan or dune to find out for yourself what is really happening behind all the shitposting and shilling. Only way to make money consistently is learning who is really putting up the signs.

Part 4: Exhaustion

If your still alive, good stuff. Maybe this blog can inspire some of you to think differently or maybe i’m just wasting my time trying to learn where commas go. Regardless, during this deep bear market liquidity will continue to dry up and market participants will get more ruthless as CT will continue to turn on each other. At this stage it’s all about finding willing buyers to offload a majority of all this dog shit. Hell, the majority of CT still posting are only around to offload their bags or to launch their own NFT project before it actually starts snowing. Retail volume is dead, Coinbase is nowhere to be found on the app store, everyone hates Matt Damon, and even your grandparents who you shilled crypto to over a nice family gathering are started to question the tech.

The name of the game is and will always be surviving. Risk of ruin or whatever cool term they call it these days. I don’t care if you’re a Zen master or do hot yoga every day, crypto takes a toll on your mental health. Maybe instead of staring at the 1 minute chart all day you might decide to open up some coding tutorials. Traders have a full head of grey hair by the time they are 30, builders are retired by then. Crypto is a the greatest mmo with the most equal playing field, thats why we are all attracted to it. Anyone with an internet connection and some smarts can make some beer money. Enjoy it, but as the WoW loading screen tooltip famously says “everything in moderation”.

At the end of the day… those dead ants in the middle of the spiral? In crypto, we call that effective altruism.

Good Luck anon

A Bug’s life top 10 movie btw

follow me on twitter for shitposts @fozzydiablo