The studio must find its own position in the process of becoming more professional. The tutorials on the market are either teaching TX and large-scale interactions, or they are doing differentiated things, fully utilizing their own advantages in order to increase the chance of receiving airdrops.
Qifeite talked about airdrops, saying, “Airdrops are like dividing a cake. In order to get a larger share, you have to constantly increase and expand the number of addresses. Of course, the criteria for expansion must comply with the airdrop rules set by the project party. If the rules are unclear, you can only think about how the project party might draw the line. If there are rat warehouses, how can your address meet the criteria for “mixing into” the rat warehouses?”
Lumao is also starting to emphasize the “craftsmanship” now. Lumao is like fishing, and the waiting time is always the longest. In the process of Lumao, what is needed is not only technique, but also patience and determination. “The most suitable person for Lumao is someone who can remain calm. Only such people can go further,” Damon said.
When Qifeite just left Web2 last year, she was indeed a bit anxious. When she was doing Lumao alone, her lifestyle was very irregular. She often stayed up late and got up late. But luckily, she and her friends Lumaoed the Sui project, and the monthly unlocked sales quotas were equivalent to “monthly wages,” which greatly relieved her anxiety. “But I can’t rely solely on this income to make a living. After all, the tokens are unlocked once a month, and they will be gone after a year. I have to find a way to make a living.”
So during that year, in addition to Lumaoing, Qifeite also worked hard to learn, such as learning options trading and gaining a deeper understanding of the Bitcoin ecosystem, seizing some opportunities in the second half of the year.
Three years later, Lumao people have gradually developed a “craftsmanship” and adjusted their operational strategies. From the early days of easily obtaining airdrops through casual interactions, to now running code-based studios, while pursuing efficiency, the Lumao industry has gradually developed a more delicate and sophisticated way of operation, emphasizing that “boutique accounts are the best,” and boutique account addresses are regarded as a “gold mine” and a “minefield.”
Qifeite told BlockBeats, “I don’t agree with using synchronizers when using fingerprint browsers. Although synchronizers are indeed convenient and can operate multiple addresses at the same time, doubling efficiency, this can easily make the behavior trajectory of addresses the same, increasing the risk of being identified as a witch.”
Damon also emphasized the importance of manual operation: “Many studios now have a lazy mentality and try to be clever by using scripts or automated Lumao. This approach is highly likely to be ‘killed’ by ZKsync. Therefore, some room for error should be left, such as 20% of the work relying on code and synchronizers, and the remaining 80% relying on purely manual operation.”
Whale’s view is also similar. For example, on ZKsync and Starknet, the machine-based approach completely failed, because Starknet uses AI to query witch clusters with similar behaviors (including withdrawal time, amount, interaction path, interaction order, etc.). ZKsync uses amount retention, and if batch running with scripts, the instinct is to ignore the above two points in order to pursue efficiency. Therefore, due to the randomness of manual operation (not efficient enough) and considering the cost of operation (infrequent movement of LP funds), there are almost no witches on these two projects.
In addition to manual operation becoming mainstream again, detailed data analysis has also become the core competitiveness of many successful studios. Whale emphasizes that in the cryptocurrency industry, the market value and distribution of tokens for each project need to be carefully estimated. Although this estimation may seem simple, it is actually very complex and time-consuming to implement. “There are too many projects, and it is exhausting to calculate the cost, return, and input-output ratio for each one. But I have always insisted on this habit to ensure that the input and return of each project have a rough estimate,” Whale explained.
To ensure the accuracy of the estimation, Whale relies not only on public information but also on in-depth exploration of non-public data, such as the Total Value Locked (TVL) of protocols, the number of active users, and the number of independent addresses. “Many people only look at public information, but I will go further and analyze, for example, by inspecting the data of contract addresses through block explorers to estimate the expected return of a project.”
For example, a project invested by Binance usually has a market value of no less than 1 billion. Whale explained, “If a project is invested by Binance and the amount is not small, then the probability of listing on Binance is high.” Then, Whale will further analyze the activities of the project, such as token distribution ratio and the number of participating addresses, to estimate the potential income of each user based on this data.
In the process of Lumao, Whale has gradually formed his own philosophy of “subtraction.” He believes that “choosing not to do something” is more important than “choosing to do something.” “This is what guarantees my winning rate.” In Whale’s Twitter signature, he writes: “Learn increasingly, lose daily.” He explained that this means acquiring knowledge and information must be constantly increasing, while the pursuit of things should be decreasing. Reducing useless information and unnecessary pursuits is the key to success. For him, a project must have a clear reason to do it, rather than doing it just because there is no reason not to.
Lumao is also an industry that becomes more popular as it ages. “Everything is reusable,” this is Xiao Zhi’s belief. By reusing successful strategies and experiences in different projects, the cost of trial and error can be reduced, and execution efficiency can be improved.
Xiao Zhi’s team mined CHIA hardware three years ago.
“In 2021, we did the CHIA project, which also required us to set up machines and configure networks ourselves. There were many trial and error experiences, and these experiences were well reused when mining ionet, so we got started quickly.”
When CHIA soared in value that year, many “miners” and studios were tempted to purchase large-capacity hard drives to mine and earn rewards, causing a shortage and price increase of large-capacity mechanical and solid-state drives.
Xiao Zhi’s team also participated in Hong Kong IPOs before entering Web3. Just like the mentioned Hong Kong Baizhu, Xiao Zhi’s team was one of them. “We decided whether to subscribe to new stocks based on the situation and success rate of investment institutions, and this logic can also be well reused in Web3.”
“At that time, the cost of subscribing to new stocks in Hong Kong was around 10,000 to 20,000 Hong Kong dollars, which is somewhat similar to the gas fees on the chain.” Xiao Zhi remembered that during the most glorious week, their earnings from subscribing to new stocks could reach between 700,000 and 800,000.
In the process of Lumao, everyone has different strategies. Xiao Zhi explained, “Each project has different strategic dimensions, such as which protocols you interact with, what state your monthly, weekly, and daily activities can maintain, how much funds you have in your accounts and on the chain, and how much mortgage and borrowing amounts you have, etc. These are uncertain factors.”
The formulation of strategies needs to be based on experience, and the conclusion is that it is about managing multiple accounts. Xiao Zhi said, “If one account transfers money to 100 accounts, it is very easy to be detected and banned.”
Although it is impossible to be successful every time, it is important to formulate a reasonable strategy, and most importantly, to ensure strict execution of the strategy. The strategy is unchangeable. It is like playing Texas Hold’em. By strictly executing the strategy, even if one round does not achieve the regional optimum, from an overall and long-term perspective, it is still the overall optimum.
In the process of interacting with studios, we have also observed some interesting phenomena. The cryptocurrency industry has always had severe polarization. The project teams are usually elites from top universities, while most traders and Lumao people are more like talented individuals doing business in the market. English represents one extreme of this polarization.
For the self-made talented individuals, gaining respect after making money is the most desired, and they do not want to be called “nouveau riche.” Learning English has become a “dignified” thing, with symbolic meaning surpassing practical significance. It is like businessmen from “small county towns” in the year 2000 starting to wear suits and do business overseas. They are using language and behavior to shape their new identities and seek higher social recognition and respect.
Today, Lumao studios, like KOLs, are also experiencing generational changes. When they make a big profit, some choose to leave, and new studios take over the old ones to continue chasing wealth. “My friend has achieved financial freedom after this round of Lumao and is planning to close the studio and retire. I am discussing with him about taking over. This way, the price is most suitable for both of us.” This kind of inheritance after getting rich has added a special continuity to the Lumao industry.
With the passage of time, studios have also begun to form “brotherhood” relationships, forming Lumao alliances and Lumao matrices.
The voice of Lumao studios has been continuously increasing with this organization and alliance formation. Initially, Lumao participants were sometimes looked down upon by the project parties and communities, and even self-ridiculed as “slave losers.” Nowadays, project parties actively cooperate with Lumao studios and sometimes the studios provide suggestions to the project parties.
These changes are not only superficial. The “voice” of Lumao studios can now have a huge impact on the entire industry. Their opinions can change the attitude of venture capital (VC), influence token prices, and even determine whether a trading platform will list a token. This influence comes not only from their numbers and funds but also from the professional knowledge and operational experience they have gradually accumulated in the industry. It can be said that Lumao studios have evolved from a simple business model to a highly organized and influential force in the cryptocurrency industry.
Regarding the future of the Lumao industry, many people speculate whether it will disappear like the business of “Hong Kong IPOs” because it is no longer profitable.
In fact, as more and more projects fail to meet expectations after issuing tokens, the returns from airdrops have gradually decreased, and the success rate of studios has started to decline. The previous article mentioned many profitable studios, but in reality, many studios have long disappeared in the fierce competition.
The survival time of the Lumao industry depends on market trends. The bear market is more like a season of cultivation, while the bull market is the time for harvest. The cryptocurrency industry is still in its early stages, which means that the Lumao industry as a whole may still have a longer lifespan. However, with the intensification of competition, whether one can find the “art of Lumao” will become the key to success.
The Lumao industry in the cryptocurrency field is gradually moving towards the “28 rule,” where only 20% of people make money. How to become part of that profitable 20% is the huge challenge that all Lumao participants are facing now. For them, this is not just a game of technique and strategy, but also a business field that requires wisdom and patience.
This article acknowledges the interviewees: Whale, Xiaozhi, Xianyu, Damon, Qifeite, Lambert Lin.