Recently, I've been looking at the LST/re-staking setup again. To put it simply, most of the returns are not just falling from the sky: some are from inflation and small tips, and a lot of it actually comes from "people willing to spend money on safety/liquidity/narratives," either through protocol subsidies or later participants taking over the token expectations. The risks are pretty straightforward: who holds the permissions, contract upgrade vulnerabilities, cross-chain bridge issues causing a chain reaction, and re-staking where the same collateral is used to back multiple claims—if something goes wrong, it’s not just a dip, it’s a collective fall.

Recently, the testnet incentives and point-earning wave have heated up again. I initially followed a few channels hoping to catch news about whether the mainnet will issue tokens, but the more I looked, the more it seemed like gambling on airdrops rather than researching risks… so I quietly unfollowed. Anyway, my current habit is: I only try a little if I can clearly explain the “source of returns” and “who bears the risk,” otherwise I’d rather miss out.