How I paid more for "fakes" due to ignorance

My embrace of Web3 did not start with deep research, whitepapers, or long-term vision. It started with excitement. The Telegram mini-game era and season of “tap and earn” pulled me in. It felt revolutionary at the time. Imagine earning tokens just by tapping a screen, completing small tasks, and referring friends. It sounded like free money, and honestly, it felt smart to jump in early.

I paid with my time first

Hours of my day went into tapping. Morning taps. Night taps. Taps between real work. I told myself it was an investment. “Just a few minutes here and there,” I said, but those minutes stacked into hours, and those hours stacked into days. Some projects like Notcoin and Dogs paid off, and those wins reinforced the illusion that everything in that space was worth the grind. But many others were a complete flop. No meaningful reward. No lasting value. Just noise.

Looking back, I realize something uncomfortable that I paid premium prices for cheap imitations. We do this often, maybe not always with money, but with time, attention, energy, and even hope. For me, ignorance was the exchange rate.

Most of those projects were designed around hype, not value. There was engagement without ownership, activity without contribution and reward without responsibility. The systems did not care who I was, what I brought, or what I learned. I was just another tap, another number in their metrics. I did not know enough then to tell the difference between participation and value creation.

Then I joined Hive, and something shifted. Web3 suddenly became realer.

On Hive, my few hours of engagement produced tangible results. Not because of gimmicks, but because the system rewards thinking, creating, and contributing. Instead of tapping mindlessly, I was writing, engaging, curating, and building relationships. My time had direction. My effort had memory. My contributions had permanence. That was when it dawned on me: that real Web3 does not waste you, it multiplies you.

The painful lesson is this "fakes" are often cheaper upfront but more expensive in the long run. They cost you learning time. They delay clarity. They distract you from real growth. They train you to chase dopamine instead of discipline. I did not just lose hours; I lost focus that could have been invested in building skills, communities, or systems that compound.

Ignorance makes you overpay

Not every shiny Web3 project is a scam, but many are shallow. And shallow things demand constant feeding of your time, clicks, attention, without ever giving depth in return. Real platforms demand effort too, but they give something back that grows with you.

Today, I don’t regret starting where I did. Those experiences exposed the difference between noise and signal, fakes and fundamentals, earning tokens and building value. But I’m more careful now. I ask better questions. I count my time as currency. And I understand that in Web3 , as in life, what looks free can be the most expensive thing you ever buy.

Ignorance made me pay more for fakes. Knowledge taught me where value truly lives.

Thank God I found Hive, INLEO where I learn everyday and I can point to the real value of my engegements.

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