How I stopped aping into everything

BASE LAYER // Issue #12
Clarity for long-term crypto holders.

GM everyone.

Let’s be honest.

In crypto, everything looks smart.

Whitepapers sound like Nobel prize applications.

Threads are 36-tweet treatises on “emergent protocol dynamics.”

Every founder is “the most underrated in the space.”

And every new chain is solving “the real problem with decentralization.”

So naturally, in my early years—I bought all of it.

If it had jargon, I aped.

If it looked clever, I clicked.

If it showed up in three newsletters, I mentally called it a blue chip.

You can probably guess how that ended:

Roundtrips. Confusion. Regret. Repeat.

I wasn’t investing. I was outsourcing conviction.

What I didn’t realize back then was this:

• Smart is not the same as sound.

• And looking informed isn’t the same as being clear.

See, there’s a difference between information and alignment.

A project might have elite founders, a huge ecosystem, and some killer metrics.

But if you don’t understand how it fits into your personal strategy, it doesn’t belong in your portfolio.

And if you bought it just because someone else sounded smarter than you?

You’ll sell it the first time it drops 20%.

Because you never really knew why you bought it in the first place.

So I now have a simple rule:

If I can’t explain why I’m buying something in 3 clear sentences, I’m not allowed to buy it.

That rule did something surprising:

It slowed me down.

It made me think more.

And most importantly—it gave me the confidence to hold.

Because the moment I had to explain it out loud, I realized:

• How shallow most of my theses were (for example, when answering ‘where does the yield come from?')

• How often I was copying other people’s trades

• How little time I had spent actually researching the project itself

So here’s the framework I use before every entry:

1. What problem does this project solve?

   No fluff. One line. If you can’t do this, you don’t understand it.

2. Why now?

   Timing is underrated. Why does this matter today, not last year?

3. Why this instead of a safer alternative?

   If it’s just “because it could go up more,” you’re not investing. You’re guessing.

These three sentences will either build conviction—or expose the lack of it.

Now, a funny thing happens when you adopt this filter:

You start ignoring noise.

You stop opening charts just because someone tweeted about them.

You stop needing “community sentiment” to make decisions.

You’ll still miss some plays, sure.

But you’ll also hold the ones you do buy—longer, calmer, and with more clarity.

And that’s where the real money is made.

Now, the point of this isn’t just to filter coins.

It’s to understand. To commit.

Because you need to be able to explain your choices—at the dinner table, not just in Discord.

That’s what separates signal from noise.

That’s what separates investors from followers.

You don’t need more hype.

You need a strategy you can defend under pressure.

Use this filter.

Write your next thesis.

Make one great decision this cycle, not ten random ones.

See what changes.

– Alex
Founder, Base Layer