We’re all inundated with infinite content. If you’re anything like me, you probably feel overwhelmed by it all. Hell, the only reason I am writing this right now is that literally two minutes ago I felt overwhelmed while doing research for another post, and then had the idea to write about this.
This is obviously a problem that transcends crypto, but for the sake of brevity (yes, I am capable of brevity), we’ll save solving all of the world’s problems and stick to crypto.
I find that no matter where you are in your crypto journey, you’re liable to be overwhelmed. A beginner is overwhelmed with the sheer amount of new words and lingo to learn: what’s a crypto currency? what’s a block chain? or is it blockchain? what’s onchain? or is it on-chain? or on chain? what’s web3? what’s an EVM? what’s a layer 1 vs layer 2? god forbid, what’s a layer 3? what on earth is alpha? what’s discord? what’s a twitter space? what’s CT?
and so on.
But then someone who has been around for years, will still feel overwhelmed because there is always an infinite amount of new stuff coming out: what’s a kaito? what’s a yap? what’s megaeth? what’s an ai agent? what’s virtuals? what’s ai16z? there’s a fartcoin? why is it worth so much? what’s a murad? oh it’s a who? who’s a murad? who’s on murad’s list? oh that’s a what? what’s on murad’s list? what’s a doodle? why are people talking about penguins? what’s abstract? no i know what the word means, but what is it in crypto? oh it’s a layer 2? remind me… wtf is a layer 2 again? what’s a bridge? how do i bridge?
God and you wonder why we haven’t gone (truly) mainstream yet.
This place is an absolute minefield, the learning curve is steeper than Everest except it’s worse because when you think you’ve reached the summit you look up and find you’re at base camp all over again. It’s never ending.
Over the years I have learned a bunch of little tips that I think are helpful for keeping your information flow nice and curated, which I’ll be sharing below.
As a bonus, I’ll share a list of 37 of my favourite accounts to follow on Twitter for alpha and great information. Why 37? I was at 36 randomly and I like the number 37 better, so found another to add to the list.
1. Utilize Twitter Lists
This has got to be one of tthe most impactful ones, and something that far too few people use. If you’ve ever thought that your Twitter feed was garbage, that you’re seeing all sorts of content you don’t care about, and that you wish you could do something about it… Lists are for you.
The easiest way to add people to lists is to click on the 3 dots button on someone’s tweet or their profile to open up the menu, and then just click add to list. If you haven’t done it before, you can create a new one. You can then go to the Lists page and find all of your lists, and from there you can choose to pin them to your home page. So instead of the “for you” feed which is where the algorithm decides what you see, you can select your list, which will only be tweets from the people you added to the list.
I like to create lists for different purposes. A list for people who I think regularly share good alpha, a list for people I want to reply to, a list of my favourite artists, etc. When there’s a new trend and I want to get up to speed + learn all about it, I’ll often create a new list and add all the experts in that field to it. I did this when Bitcoin Ordinals were first becoming a thing, and it really helped me get and stay informed about that sector.
Use lists. Use lists. Use lists. They’re pure gold.
2. Liberally mute accounts on Twitter
The signal to noise ratio on Twitter is absurd. If you see someone that is toxic, or engagement farming, or a known scammer — have no hesitation and feel no guilt in hitting that mute button. They won’t know, you can always undo it in the future, and it will generally serve well to improve your timeline.
3. Mute words and phrases too
Most people don’t know you can do this, but you can mute words and phrases too. So that any post with the specified word(s) in it will simply never show up on your timeline. There are a few ways this can be helpful:
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If there’s something you’re simply sick of hearing about and have zero interest in, mute. Examples: “dogwifhat”, “murad”, “fartcoin”.
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If you’re feeling intense FOMO over a token that you once owned and sold, or thought about buying and didn’t, and it’s going viral and taking over the timeline while skyrocketing in price — muting can help you keep sane.
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If unwanted non-crypto content is seeping into your feed, muting words is extremely helpful in preventing this. Examples: “ukraine”, “tesla”, “greenland”.
How to mute words? Go to your profile settings → Privacy and Safety → Mute and Block → Muted Words → Click no the + icon.
One thing to be mindful of is to be careful muting “everyday” words. For instance, “abstract” could be muted if you didn’t want to hear about Abstract, the L2 blockchain. But it would also prevent every tweet from anyone using the english word abstract as well.
One nice thing about muting words is that you can set a duration when you do it. You can mute for 24hrs, 7 day, 30 days, or until you decide to unmute it.
4. Search + Bookmarks + Folders
Bookmarks in general are a great way to curate content on the timeline — you find something you think is great and you want to save it, either to read later or to re-read later, so you bookmark it. Things get pretty messy pretty quickly if you’re doing this a lot though, unless you’re using folders. So use folders. Make one for each category, and send your bookmarks into them.
I find this especially helpful when combined with the search function on twitter. It’s actually pretty great at searching, and very frequently when I am researching for a newsletter post, I search for something and then go through and bookmark a bunch of things and then later go back through them all. I did this for my airdrop farming guide, I am doing this for my upcoming alpha guide, and for my upcoming security guide.
It allows you to chunk through a bunch of curated content all on the same topic, whenever you have the time to set aside to it. This helps you from ping-ponging back and forth from one topic to another, which so often happens on Twitter.
5. Unsubscribe liberally and regularly
Potentially shooting myself in the foot here, but unsubscribe from those newsletters you no longer read! And the podcasts you no longer listen to. Getting notifications, seeing things pile up in your inbox, and never opening them — that’s just extra mental baggage weighing you down, and probably making it less likely for you to consume the content you actually want to be consuming.
6. Regularly leave Discord servers and telegram/twitter/whatever group chats
Pretty much all of us have a tendency to stay in too many servers and chats. We think “what if I miss out on something by leaving?”
The fear of missing a potential airdrop, whitelist, etc, keeps us in 150 Discord servers. The fear of missing some great piece of alpha keeps us in a dozen or two group chats.
The reality is, you’re almost definitely going to miss those things anyway, because you can’t possibly stay on top of everything happening in every server and chat. And then when you do inevitably miss something, you’ll just beat yourself up over it even more.
By being in fewer servers and chats, you significantly increase the likelihood that you’ll see and retain the information shared in them. So keep the highest quality, highest signal ones, and leave the rest.
A sidenote tip here, if you are in a bunch of Discord servers, I find it helpful to mute entire categories and all the channels that aren’t of interest to me. It takes a bit of time, but it vastly improves the Discord experience, especially if you’re in a bunch of servers.
7. Try using a “one in, one out” policy
Fairly self explanatory, but it can be helpful to adopt a policy where you only join a new Discord server or chat, or subscribe to a new newsletter or podcast, if you first leave/unsubscribe from an existing one. Helps to avoid things spiralling out of control which often happens, and happens quickly.
8. Be ruthless and practice constant vigilance
This is just a general philosophy to all of the above. You really need to be ruthless and stay on top of all of this, or your signal to noise ratio will rapidly deteriorate. Sometimes it feels bad to leave a server. You might like the founder of the project, you might have some friends in there. But if your last message was seven months ago, are you really adding much to the server?
I find a simple message saying that you’re sorry that you’re leaving but that you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the servers and chats a decent way to politely exit.
For the non-ruthless option, you can create a folder and shove all the servers you never check but don’t want to leave for whatever reason in there. Out of sight (for the most part), out of mind.
