Many people love to invest recklessly after making some money in a bull market, especially after winning the aster lottery. Friends in the group are eager to follow KOL rounds, wanting to carpool as soon as a message is sent out. When I look at it, the on-paper valuation is sold to you at a 3x premium, too shady! Friends still think they can make money and are busy raising funds.

The premium of the KOL rounds is just on paper; there are actual incentive clauses, meaning the KOL gets compensated, not real VC. KOL resells quotas for several times profit, incentivizing themselves to swallow your investment without you knowing. Do they have quotas of hundreds of thousands? Because it's not worth that price; after going public, they use your money to buy coins for you, profiting from your lack of understanding. Is it really valuable? They just say the project party hasn't issued coins, and they themselves are victims too.

Many projects have a TGE unlock of 0%, and there’s no need for redemption at the opening. This type of delegated private placement is an old trick; from ZK to 0G, there are always people swearing they invested in private placements with the community, only to find out they didn't even get the coins. Most KOL rounds are traps; coins can't be issued or directly cut off. Something like aster takes years to release one, and you might not even get a winning ticket.

The contract is in black and white, but the project party can also refuse to redeem. If you play hardball, they won't give you coins; if they play hardball, you have no way out. Soft and hard rug pulls, coins going to zero, no pool, burning coins, adjusting valuations, contracts not being executed—anything can happen. Delegated investment doesn't even have a contract. Focus on what you are good at, and don’t touch what you don’t understand. The primary market is becoming more transparent; echo, legion, and other public VC terms, buidlpad and kaito capital optimizing retail unlocks, jarsy and asp can dynamically take over.

Just participate in public projects; don’t go around begging. You think he is your insider channel, but in fact, you are his monetization tool.