The faucet is closed. The testnet tokens are worthless. Mainnet launch makes one thing brutally clear: every action now has a real, monetary cost.
For developers, this changes everything. Before, deploying a smart contract was a learning exercise. Now, it's a financial decision. They have to acquire $DUSK , weigh gas costs, and consider the actual monetary risk of a failed deployment. That simple barrier filters out the casually curious and commits resources from the serious.
For users, the era of free transactions is over. The upcoming campaigns or airdrops will feel different because they'll require paying for gas to claim or interact with. This cost layer is the first true test of perceived value. Is what's being offered worth the few dollars in transaction fees to engage with it? The answer to that question, aggregated across thousands of users, will be the first real measure of utility, not just curiosity.
The "free-to-play" phase of the ecosystem is over. We've entered "pay-to-play." And what people are willing to pay for, even just in gas, is the purest signal of all.
