How to use crypto twitter to level up
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Dear Crypto Natives,
I didn’t use twitter much before crypto. I found it noisy. Too distracting. Yet unexpectedly, it’s become a foundational tool for leveling up in my crypto journey.
There are about a dozen platforms from github, to reddit, to telegram, to medium that form the social layer of crypto. This social layer is where real crypto governance happens. Not onchain. Not in coinvotes. Governance happens in these web 2.0 powered social platforms.
Of all the social platforms twitter holds a special place in crypto.
Twitter is a public square. Everyone’s there. Developers, shills, media, leaders, users, investors, miners, projects. It’s free form. Ideas get debated, memes get created, information gets disseminated. It’s messy, loud, and silly, but it’s also insightful, organic, and useful like nothing else for leveling up—if you know what you’re doing.
Today we’re going to learn how to use crypto twitter to level up.
- RSA
P.S. See my picks for the 40 best twitter follows for learning crypto & open finance
TACTICS TUESDAY:
Tactic #13:
How to use crypto twitter to level up
If you use it well crypto twitter can also be one of the fastest ways to level-up on crypto and open finance. Learn from some of the smartest people in the world, expose yourself to new ways of thinking, learn about interesting projects from the people working on them, and escape your meme bubble. Let’s figure out how to use crypto twitter to level up.
- Goal: Learn how to use twitter to level up on open finance
- Skill: Beginner
- Effort: 15-20 mins a day
- ROI: Gain a few hundred dollars worth of knowledge for every 20 mins you spend
What is crypto twitter?
Crypto twitter is just what we call that corner of twitter that primarily engages in conversation about crypto. Take a look a Hive.one for the makeup.
Everyone’s got an agenda
People have reasons for spending time on crypto twitter. Here are a few:
- They’re trying to learn something
- They’re crowdsourcing new ideas
- They’re seeking influence & social capital
- They’re developing a community
- They have bags they’re trying to shill you
- They’re addicted to the endorphin hits
- They’re feeding their ego
Crypto twitter is just another social game we play as value maximizing humans. Everyone who’s on crypto twitter is there for something. They’re investing their time for some return. Everyone’s got an agenda.
Not to say their agenda is always contrary to your best interests.
For some the agenda is intellectual curiosity. These are some of my favorite follows. Of course even these follows have their biases, but they’re less prone to lazy thinking. And they’re not trying to sell you anything.
For others the agenda is self-promotion. Twitter rewards memetic tweets. It’s more important for a self-promoter to sound right rather than to be right. I’m wary of the crypto self-promotors, they cling to popular opinions and change with whatever happens to be the popular narrative.
Many have agendas influenced by the bags they hold—the cryptoassets in their portfolio. Their bag bias can make them willfully ignorant to the flaws of their project. Worse—it can turn them into active shills, some honest, but some less so. When this occurs in groups we get the XRP Army, the LINK Marines, and BTC Maximalists.
I actually appreciate the honest bag holders though. They have skin in the game. In some ways, their opinions are worth more to me than the opinions of virtue-signaling pundits without anything at stake.
But understand the agendas. And weight the information coming from those agendas accordingly.
How to maximize crypto twitter
Ok, let’s get to some nuts and bolts. You’re looking to maximize your twitter experience for leveling up on crypto and open finance. Here’s how to get started:
- Follow the people who will teach you the most about crypto (more below)
- Curate your follows into a twitter list so you’re not depending on algorithms
- Scan the list for interesting material regularly (20 mins every day or two)
Your goal at first should be to find the best people on crypto twitter you can learn from. I’ve created a list in the next section to help with that—not too many at first, quality over quantity. Once you have your follows, add them to your own curated twitter list. I like lists because they surface everything, not just the popular tweets selected by the twitter algorithms—you get nuance, you get to know your follows. Every day or so scan the tweets on the list. Like them, bookmark them, take notes.
As time goes by you further curate your list:
- Remove follows you’re no longer learning from
- Add a couple of new follows every week or so
- Increase your engagement by asking questions & replying to threads
Sometimes you learn everything you can from a someone after a few weeks—that’s great. Remove them from your list. Keep things fresh by adding new follows every week or so. But be careful not to add without subtracting—a list over 100 follows gets unwieldy and time consuming. You should be able to get through the tweets on your list in about is 20 mins a day. And start engaging more, ask informed questions. Your follows will often answer you directly. And if they don’t, someone else who’s knowledgeable probably will.
The best thing you can do is to not get stuck in a bubble. Keep your list dynamic.
Remember that earlier advice about bag bias and agendas? Counterbalance the agendas. If you follow too many BTC maximalists then try adding members of the ETH is Money tribe. Is your feed non-stop DeFi love? Add some informed money protocol critics. Worried you’re in a crypto bubble? Get some good crypto skeptics in there. Bias is fine, but unfollow anyone who’s intentionally misleading.
40 best follows on crypto twitter
A few weeks back I asked—who on twitter has taught you the most about crypto & open finance? This list is based on that response and also my own experience.
ETH Community—mostly tweet about Ethereum
- @evan_van_ness (Week in Ethereum)
- @econoar & @sassal0x (ETHHub—community leaders)
- @TrustlessState (writer)
- @teo_leibowitz (analyst & writer)
- @iamDCinvestor (community leader)
- @antiprosynth (ETH aggregator)
BTC Community—mostly tweet about Bitcoin
- @hasufl (writer & investor)
- @nic__carter (writer & investor)
- @MustStopMurad (writer & investor)
- @lopp (developer)
- @TraceMayer (investor)
Open Finance—money protocols and open finance
- @ChrisBlec (DeFi Video Tutorials)
- @CamiRusso (writer)
- @ColeGotTweets (community manager)
- @defipulse (DeFiPulse leaderboard)
- @defiprime (community leader)
- @danrobinson (investor & financial engineer)
- @tomhschmidt (product lead)
Thinkers & Framers—
- @cburniske (investor)
- @spencernoon (investor)
- @aantonop (speaker & writer)
- @jessewldn (investor)
- @jbrukh (investor)
- @hosseeb (investor & writer)
- @balajis (long time crypto advocate)
Technical—mostly crypto technical subjects
- @ercwl (developer)
- @VitalikButerin (started Ethereum)
- @MihailoBjelic (crypto developer)
- @nanexcool (developer Maker)
- @austingriffith (developer Ethereum)
- @BenDiFrancesco (developer)
- @gakonst (layer 2 developer)
- @phildaian (developer)
- @AlexSkidanov (developer)
- @avsa (developer)
Media—crypto news and media
- @twobitidiot (Messari Founder)
- @nlw (Crypto aggregator)
- @valkenburgh (coincenter legal)
- @IvanOnTech (crypto youtube)
👉Here’s the above in twitter list form already compiled for you!
Final thoughts
Follow people you’ll learn from, curate your lists, timebox your twitter time, prune your follows when you stop learning—twitter is a productivity killer and dopamine waster for some but for you crypto twitter is a tool to level up.
Have fun!
Oh, and here’s a twitter list of Bankless Inner Circle Members. Don’t forget to follow them too. We’re doing this together afterall.
Actions
- Maximize your twitter time for learning & level ups (start w/ the 40 best follows)
P.S. here’s a twitter list of Bankless Inner Circle Members
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Filling out the skill cube
Learning how to level up using crypto twitter cards can expand your skills in all layers of the the skill cube. Awesome work!
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Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
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