Today, BTC took a little roller coaster ride — it peaked around $78,000 early in the morning, and before I could shout "The bulls are back!", it dropped back to the $75,000 range within an hour, closing at about $75,700, down 2% in 24 hours. This was once again pushed down by the situation in the Middle East and low-volume fluctuations, primarily aiming to deceive and wash out traders!
Getting back to the point, I remember I used to be a standard candlestick trader. Every day, the first thing I did upon waking was check the gainers list, and the last thing I did before sleeping was place stop-loss orders. During my cryptocurrency trading days, the top three apps I used on my phone were always the exchange, market software, and Twitter. I made money and lost money, but the hardest part wasn't losing money — it was the feeling of being completely out of control when you had all your savings riding on a few red and green bars.
Later, I was pulled into Pixels by a friend. At first, it was purely for the novelty. Farming? I can't even keep real flowers alive, let alone virtual ones. Guess what? I didn't open the exchange app even once in the first month.
I can't quite say why. Maybe it's just that every morning I wake up and find that the blueberries I planted yesterday are ripe, a few chickens are hungry, and a brother in the guild is calling me to help harvest some vegetables at his farm. These things aren't urgent or thrilling, but they make you want to get involved. After finishing, I have a few more BERRY in my wallet—not a lot, but it feels solid.
Luke Barwikowski mentioned in an interview at the end of last year something that left a deep impression on me—he said that good Web3 games shouldn't make players constantly calculate 'how many tokens I mined in this hour,' but rather let players forget that they are making money. This statement coming from a project representative is somewhat counterintuitive, but if you think about it, it makes sense. Have you ever seen a truly fun game where players are primarily concerned about the return on investment?
The data from Pixels actually speaks volumes. DappRadar shows that the number of on-chain active users has been maintained at hundreds of thousands for a long time, and interestingly, the average session duration of users ranks highly among Web3 games. What does that mean? It means that players don't just log in for a couple of clicks to collect rewards; they are genuinely engaged in working, socializing, and tinkering inside.
I specifically looked up the official data from Pixels at the end of last year—the user retention rate was still just over 20% on day 30. What does that mean in the Web3 gaming circle? Most projects drop to single digits within seven days. Luke also admitted in the interview that the metric they value the most internally is not the price of PIXEL, but 'the time players are willing to spend in the game.' Because when time is invested, the ecosystem takes root.
I've studied the unlock schedule for PIXEL; it's not fully released until 2029, and currently, the circulating supply is just over 15%. This design is essentially forcing everyone—teams, investors, players—to wait together. Wait for the game itself to take off, wait for the economic model to become self-sustaining, rather than relying on new players to take over coins from old players.
To be honest, now I open Pixels every day to check on how my plot is doing, chat with a few seasoned members in the guild, and occasionally study how to arrange Yieldstone for higher returns. These activities are already much more interesting than watching K-lines. K-lines go up or down, and you can't do anything about it. But in the game, if you feed a few more chickens today, open another plot tomorrow, and work with alliance brothers the day after, these are things you can control.
This feeling, as they say in Sichuan dialect, is—steady and unhurried.
In the past, I thought time was money, and every minute had to be spent watching the market, farming, or arbitraging. Now I realize that where time is spent matters more, and I actually have a clearer understanding of it. Pixels hasn't cured my poverty, but it has cured my impatience.