Be social, responsibly

As we previously announced, today we will go over the joys and pains of networking, how important it is in the current landscape, and how to avoid scams while interacting with other actors in the digital space.

With the last article of the series, we gave you a rundown on what to avoid or look out for directly on projects and project marketing. Today we want to focus on an aspect of crypto that is often overlooked, or that is often underestimated: Networking and Social media.

Networking for the users?

Many people believe that networking is only useful for B2B transactions or for people looking to advance their own career in a specific field, but, in the age of social media and multi-echo chamber advertisement that can’t be more wrong.

First, we want to bring some attention to specific events that happened in the digital ecosphere and in the stock market that really showcase what we mean, and then we want to expose a little on how to actually differentiate between valuable networking, valuable connections, and bottom shelf scams/phishing endeavors.

The single most amazing instance of what networking and public opinion can achieve is the Gamestop breakout that happened a couple of years ago. This was an event that brought to the forefront of financially focused newspapers the importance of retail investors and was a momentous occasion for the market.

A group of very dedicated users discovered that a financial institution was shorting the game-stop stock at a reckless rate, and organized a targeted attack that resulted in the game-stop stock skyrocketing, making the members of the Reddit group WallstreetBets that started the action quite a bit richer, and losing the hedge funds involved in the squeeze millions of dollars.

While being involved in the primary force behind the reverse squeeze required foresight and risk-taking maneuvers, a lot of people that were even only marginally aware of what was happening managed to either avoid the reverse squeeze, or profit from fast-paced value trades.

The same principle can be applied to the many crypto groups that are floating around discord and telegram, groups in which you can either get massive value out of solid signalling from trusted sources/ market insiders or you can get bought in by massive Ponzi schemes of colluding malicious actors. This is why our first principle for this topic is always relevant: Too Good To Be True is No Bueno.

Not everything that shines is actually Gold boys and lads.

Recognizing a great opportunity and recognizing that something that’s too good to be true are important skills to develop in this ecosphere. If you are being spammed by multiple accounts of some firm/project/group with amazing opportunities being advertised, insider info readily available or even more outrageous claims then you should probably just walk away slowly while protecting your personal info.

But, sometimes, just sometimes, you have properly established a good network of friends and partners, you gave some useful insight to that cyber security developer that just came into the field, and you get an interesting message about some particular opportunity that may or may not net you some positive returns in your portfolio: this is when you know you are going somewhere.

This is when you want to look deeper into a project, check out teams, cross reference data and even scout for info about the users in your network that gave you that information. You may be surprised by what you find, and, ultimately, it doesn’t matter if you end up with more money than you began with, because even if you don’t, you have done your research and you have withdrawn from the situation, leaving you with only with the net positive of knowing a particular ecosystem very well, and knowing that someone can or cannot be trusted.

You repeat that cycle, and, over time, you will find out that you have developed a vast network of useful connections, as well as a deep knowledge of the fields that you researched, and, more importantly, how they interact with each other.

Now, to simplify the process of finding like-minded individuals, let’s start with a step-by-step process on how to avoid all the useless trashcans that are just after something you have that they want.

Scams have different layers of difficulty.

In 2022, is quite difficult to fall for the more obvious scams that have already been around for years, but there is always someone good enough at their craft that is able to pull through and take the money of even the most prepared user.

But with this new wave of users that entered the field in the last couple of years, we should also worry about some of the more typical scams around, like phishing, personal info theft, and insider trading.

• Recognize the profiles you interact with: if it looks like a bot, talks like a bot, and acts like a bot, just delete your chat and move forward.
• If you make it past the bot check and you are, in fact, talking with an actual human, search various social media to check out the person, and see if anyone is shilling him/ bashing him for scams or other malicious actions.
• If you find out that the person you are talking to is an influencer, check if their follower count is inflated by bots, and if you clearly see too much bot influence, just don’t bother.
• If you find out that the person you are interacting with is an influencer/developer/CEO or something off the line, check out if they are legit in their ecosphere, what previous colleagues said about them, and what are they doing at the moment.
• Message other accounts of the person you are interacting with, especially if you were contacted, or you contacted someone on telegram, Twitter or discord: if they were just scammers trying to impersonate someone else you will be able to have their account terminated, while also opening a door with the person that was impersonated since you just helped them protect their reputation.
• If you made it this far, and you are now able to access a network of reputable users, you can get access to many info, private groups, insider groups and OTC transactions.
• This is where the multi-layering starts, you will need to observe the methodology of those groups, and see if they are entities that work like pyramid schemes, or if they are genuinely groups of like-minded people that are all trying to profit from their skills.
• Those groups usually give out false signals backed up by data crafted together with either facade projects or people acting as whales on smaller projects IDOs ICOs and private sales, so be very careful when there are signal groups that promise you to 100X every investment, especially if they back it up with data coming from inside the same groups.
• ALWAYS keep in mind that by doing the right amount of research, analysing all aspects of a particular issue, and by moving carefully you can minimize your risks, but there is an inherent risk in every movement so: protect your info, never give your personal data to anything that isn’t properly announced as part of a bigger legally binding proposition and invest only what you can lose.

The currencies here are information and knowledge.

If you aren’t directly involved in the digital market, and you don’t wish to be, the main use of each and every Networking proposition shouldn’t be to land a big business deal, the next 100x, or even start your investment journey.

What you want to do is focus on gaining valuable knowledge over the fields that you are focusing on, be they NFTs, DeFi Data projects, B2B propositions between entities, tokenomics movements and whatnot, in a manner that may seem unusual but is actually very valuable.

Do it long enough, and you will also get access to information that on official websites may come out a month later, you will get access to specific echo chambers of the net in which truly brilliant individuals are basically sharing world expert knowledge just for shit and giggles, you may become close pen friend with the new Vitalik, but be careful, because you don’t want to become friend with the next Bankman Fried.

We need to be very clear right now: networking is a deeply complex and highly rewarding way of building up yourself in a specific manner but is also risky even when taking every precaution possible, so if you aren’t a people person, there are other ways to achieve similar results.

Even while networking, you will need to focus on your strengths and bring value to the ecosystem you join to keep climbing up the ladder and reach out for opportunities that aren’t really available to outsiders and freeloaders.

So, stick to the rules, keep your head down and your guard up, bob and weave the occasional jab and make consistent and safe gains, build up your own skills and you will be able to accrue personal capabilities, knowledge and data that will stay with your forever, and will make every new decision you make more informed and safer.

And remember, even if you fail sometimes after all of that, you won’t regret not trying your hardest, you will be able to pick up from where you left off and make back what you lost.

Conclusion.

The digital market is a multi-faceted world with different layers in which everyone has to fit, and networking is the tool we use to gain access to different layers starting from our own position.

Networking is a valuable tool exactly because of the mobility that it gives you while inside a specific field, but is not your end goal nor is it a quick solution to make the most out of your journey, you want to use it to accrue valuable personal skill, deep knowledge of a specific field, or information that you can use while crossing over other different chambers of the internet.

Keep investing in yourself and you will gradually be able to succeed more and more, take fewer risks for more rewards, and, with time on your side, breach into multiple new opportunities that will keep your skillset relevant through the years.

This is something that many members of the Synapse Network can assess, coming from multiple different backgrounds, from tech and business developing, to marketing, psychology, infotainment, or even teaching, and ending up forming a close team of likeminded individuals at the helm of the project you see now today.

We wish that your journey will be as rewarding as ours has been, but we do not want to dismiss the difficulties that we faced to reach where we are, nor do we want to underestimate the challenge in front of you. This series of articles comes in as a tutorial for your crypto journey, and we want to be sure that you are well-equipped for what comes next.

And with our calling out of the way, let’s focus on what’s coming next! As always, don’t forget to check out our social media to stay on top of all the opportunities we provide, and don’t forget to check out our Medium for all the informative content we will be releasing in this period of great change.

About Synapse Network

Synapse Network is developing a cross-chain investment and start-up acceleration ecosystem based on blockchain technology to give everybody an equal chance to contribute to great upcoming projects and to do so early on. We are bridging the gap between the traditional & crypto market. The idea of the Synapse Network technology goes beyond the standard offer of launchpads available on the market, becoming a true technological brand providing tech solutions.

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